Ellenbrook & Boothstown Brass Band.
St Mary's rides to the rescue....
With the closure of the Methodist Church's premises during their period of demolition and rebuilding, the Ellenbrook and Boothstown Brass Band had no place in which to practise. St Mary's have been able to provide an alternative practice venue. Now on Monday and Wednesday evenings between 8pm and 10pm the band will practise at church. They will not meet on the Wednesday evenings when Ellenbrook Wednesday Circle hold their monthly meetings to enable this group to continue without disruptions.
It is good to be able to offer assistance when needed and the congregation at St Mary's welcome the opportunity of being of service to the wider community.
As the following historical note shows, our links with the band go back quite some time!
Mike Rimmer adds
A former curate of St Mary’s, the Revd A.E. Sillitoe, helped form Ellenbrook
and Boothstown Band back in 1875. Mr Sillitoe, a euphonium player, linked up
with Ebeneezer Higham and his brother Ben to set up the band. It used St Mary’s
schoolroom, which stood across the road from St Mary’s Church on the site
now occupied by the flats. It held its first rehearsal there on 6 April 1875,
and its first public performance two months later at Boothstown school festival.
It continued to rehearse there for 74 years until the building was pulled down
in 1949.
Ebeneezer Higham was the band’s
conductor for more than 50 years.
On his death in May 1933, the band led the funeral procession to St Mark’s
Church. Ellenbrook and Boothstown Band featured in a radio broadcast of the
Remembrance Day Service in Manchester in 1937 and has competed in a variety
of competitions over the years. It moved from St Mary’s to the British
Legion in Boothstown, only to be made homeless again in 1965 when that building
was demolished. After using in a room at the King William pub in Mosley Common
for a year it moved to the Church Institute in Boothstown, switching to the
Methodist Chapel in 1985. 22 years on, the demolition of the 134-year old building
(which is being replaced at a cost of £483,000) meant yet another move,
and St Mary’s was the obvious choice!
The band is conducted by Craig Mann, organist at Walkden Methodist Church, and has Matthew Sale, organist at Walkden Road United Reform Church, as its musical director.
You can
hear the band play at Ellenbrook Primary School’s summer fair on 24 July
between 1pm and 4pm.
Mark the date in your diaries now!
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