REVIEW: Devizes Town Band – Proms in Hillworth Park –Sunday 12th September 2021

Sun Shining & All Is Well with The World

Andy Fawthrop

Does anybody else feel like things are starting to roll again? I mean like “normal”? – not the “new normal”, not the “old normal”, but just “normal”? Just me then?!

After snuggling up with the BBC on Saturday night to witness the old “last night of the Proms”, with a cup of warm Horlicks and a packet of McVities digestives, and remembering that this was what it’s always been like at this time of year, I came over all nostalgic. You know what I mean – the slide into Crimbo & the New Year via “putting the clocks back”, Halloween, Gunpowder Plot (and Thanksgiving if you’re of a Yankee persuasion). And the “it must be Autumn because Strictly’s started up again”. Yeah – all that. Soon be snow on the ground, blah, blah, blah…

Well, Sunday in Hillworth Park proved that there’s still a bit of life left in the old Summer yet, and it’s not quite time to pull out the long-johns and big coat. A large group of D-Town citizens turned out with camping chairs and picnic blankets to be royally entertained by Fantasy Radio (broadcasting live), the talented young singer Chloe Jordan, and the massed might of the Devizes Town Band, with their version of Proms In The Park. Children played, dogs scampered around, people ate ice-creams and queued for the loos. This was England! This was Summer! All good traditional stuff.

We were treated to a wonderfully varied programme of songs and music, ably MC’d by Mark Jones of Fantasy Radio 97FM, and under the direction of the enthusiastic Sharon Lindo. There were great solos from Jim Keenahan and Bruce MacDonald, ensemble and orchestral pieces, and of course the traditional rousing coda of Sailor’s Hornpipe, Rule Britannia, Jerusalem (beautifully rendered by Chloe), and the National Anthem. We had everything – clapping, singing, dancing, flag-waving – from the enthusiastic crowd. If anyone was feeling a little blue after months of Lockdown, no-one had told the hundreds of people who were out to enjoy themselves. And they rewarded the performers with a pretty darned good ovation at the end. Perhaps we ought to ask the Town Council to build us a bandstand? Just a thought. (Yes Andy, I suggested this too; Ed!)