A town keeping its band

Garforth was once home to a competitive brass band, though little is recorded about it beyond the fact that it ceased to exist several decades ago. In 1977 a non-competitive band, Garforth Jubilee, was formed to mark the silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, and it kept the sound of brass alive in the town for the next forty years.

The band you hear today began in December 2004, when Steven Bailey — a local peripatetic music teacher who had played in top-tier bands — gathered some like-minded people to busk over Christmas. On 1 January 2005 they became Garforth Community Brass Band, meeting at the Scout Hut on Sunday mornings. Six weeks later the new band entered the Yorkshire regional contest as a fourth-section band and came second, earning a place at the national final in Harrogate, where it came second again.

“Making their debut in the Yorkshire regional contest as a 4th Section band in February 2005, Garforth Community Brass Band secured a remarkable 2nd place.”

Promotion to the third section followed for 2006, the name shortened to Garforth Brass, and in October that year the band registered as a charity. Its finest hour came in 2009: Yorkshire third-section champions, another trip to Harrogate, and a move to Garforth Methodist Church, where the band still rehearses on Wednesday evenings.

The years that followed were harder. Directors changed, players left, and by 2013 the band was back in the fourth section. Mark Wildie, Charles Fyffe, founder member Michael Cox and James Beecham each kept it going, and in 2017 John Thompson began a seven-year tenure that rebuilt the band, took it to the 2018 National Finals and topped the fourth-section table for 2019/20.

Then came the pandemic. Both Garforth bands emerged from lockdown with falling numbers, and in 2021 Garforth Jubilee Brass merged into Garforth Brass so that the town would keep at least one band. It worked: rehearsals have been close to full ever since. Gordon Eddison took over as musical director in April 2024.

Why a lottery?

A brass band is expensive to run and cheap to join — deliberately so. The training band lends instruments and teaches for free; the senior band pays contest entries, coach hire and music from concert fees and donations. The band’s most recent accounts show an annual income of under £6,000. A weekly lottery, with half of every pound going to the band, is a way for the wider community to give a little, regularly, and know exactly what it pays for.