Business-as-usual for four-in-a-row Foden’s at Blackpool

by Alan Jenkins

Surprise and business-as-usual were on the menu for visitors to Blackpool last Sunday (1st). En route from the car park to the Winter Gardens in the early morning drizzle, there was time to reflect on the surprising news that Adolf Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb Blackpool as he intended to spend some of his holidays there. Most of the reflection centred upon what would be spared by the wrecking ball, bearing in mind the words of the Führer, revealed in his favourite architect’s Memoirs: ‘Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his building was to transmit his time and its spirit to posterity. Ultimately, all that remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture…’

Precisely, so not much of Blackpool would be left standing then, besides the Tower and the Winter Gardens, because Hitler would, no doubt, be taken with the musical blitzkrieg known as the North West Regional Championships, taking place inside the Opera House, Empress Ballroom and Spanish Hall. A momentary sobering thought was the prospect of listening to 11 performances of Wagner’s four-and-a-half-hour Götterdämmerung (which would remove the blitz from the krieg) rather than Gilbert Vinter’s pleasant 12-minute Salute to Youth.
More to the point of this review was the generous helping of business as usual provided by top-section adjudicator, David Read, who awarded the title to Foden’s Band, conducted by Garry Cutt. This was the band’s fourth Regional title on the trot, equalling the record of the late lamented CWS (Manchester) Band. The only real surprise was the absence of Leyland Band (Jason Katsikaris) from the top six placings.

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