Longest Marches

Fishsta

Fishsta

Active Member
No, not the music... the march itself! The parade or walking in which you take part!

Yesterday was Kirkham Club Day... starting in the morning, we must have done about 4 and a half miles of walking. It doesn't sound long, but bring in the weight of a Bb Bass, and it suddenly seems much longer...

Add some searing heat from an unforgiving sun, and dark coloured jackets with which you can absorb as many of the rays as possible.

Today wasn't much better, I helped out a band doing Coppull Walking Day. That's about 5 and half miles (I took a pedometer with me one year to measure it) and has a few nice slopes in it... Again, with it being a scorcher today, I must have lost a stone this weekend... :D

I want to find out what the longest march is... both in England and in the world. Coppull's only a village, but it's still a monster. There must be bigger than this?

So what's that march you groan at every year? Of course, you still get out there and do it... don't you?
 
Big Twigge

Big Twigge

Active Member
well if its any conselation I remember being on a very long march, I just can't remember were it was so I choose not to post this useless piece of non information, but given that no one else replied I thought i would!
 
Keppler

Keppler

Moderator
Staff member
yep - hear hear.

I can remember a really long one, but in reality it probably wasn't really long cos I was about 10 and 4'4" and I wasn't quite as tall as some other peoples legs. So I ended up walking about 3 times as far as everyone else, cos I had to take 3 steps to their one. And the 6'2" cornet player behind me kept emptying his spitvalve on top of me.
So anyway, it seemed really long, but it probably wasn't

A slightly taller Kepps.
 
Keppler

Keppler

Moderator
Staff member
I knew I shouldn't have posted that.. :?
It'd funny if it wasn't true

I can imagine Rach going "ahahahahahahahahaha" when she reads it though

Yeah - go on - laugh the lot of yez... :?
 
iancwilx

iancwilx

Well-Known Member
We did one at Wrenthorpe near Wakefield a couple of years ago.
It was blazing sunshine and very hot.
We marched about 5 miles, up steep hills, through council estates and down country lanes.
The Solo Trom was not present so the 2nd Trom - Tony Spencer (God Bless him ) - had to play "National Emblem" about 6 times.( A taxing part !!) + about 2 or 3 other "Standard Marches"
We only had 2 Basses, 1 Eb and 1 Bb - the BBb player was purple and just about to collapse, when the Parade turned into a Pub Car Park and the Parade Marshall said "Well done, get yourselves a drink" - we rushed the bar and gave thanks to God it was over.
Half way down the 2nd Pint the Marshall shouts down the bar " Form up, we move off in 2 minutes" - this was received with a stunned silence !!!
We stumbled out of the pub, formed up and marched 5 miles back !!!
We finished ( On our Knees) in a park playing "Death or Glory" - given the choiceI think we would have opted for death !!!!!!
 
cornetgirl

cornetgirl

Active Member
Well, Kepps, you know me too well, obviously!

Keeping well on topic, did Edlington a couple of times with Coops and that was about 2 miles!

Rach x
 
Fishsta

Fishsta

Active Member
iancwilx said:
We did one at Wrenthorpe near Wakefield a couple of years ago.
It was blazing sunshine and very hot.
We marched about 5 miles, up steep hills, through council estates and down country lanes.
The Solo Trom was not present so the 2nd Trom - Tony Spencer (God Bless him ) - had to play "National Emblem" about 6 times.( A taxing part !!) + about 2 or 3 other "Standard Marches"
We only had 2 Basses, 1 Eb and 1 Bb - the BBb player was purple and just about to collapse, when the Parade turned into a Pub Car Park and the Parade Marshall said "Well done, get yourselves a drink" - we rushed the bar and gave thanks to God it was over.
Half way down the 2nd Pint the Marshall shouts down the bar " Form up, we move off in 2 minutes" - this was received with a stunned silence !!!
We stumbled out of the pub, formed up and marched 5 miles back !!!
We finished ( On our Knees) in a park playing "Death or Glory" - given the choiceI think we would have opted for death !!!!!!
Click to expand...

Geez!!! TEN Miles???

Hope that job pays well.

Bet you pray for rain every year!
 
PeterBale

PeterBale

Moderator
Staff member
I'm not quite sure on the overall distance, but the Lord Mayor's Show in London is probably one of the longest marches bands regularly take part in, but you do get a break in the middle, with a doggy bag of refreshments!
 
horn1

horn1

Member
Boarshurst traditionaly play at the Greenfield walks on Whit Friday morning. I don't know how far the march is but it takes four and a half hours! On friday we set off at 8.30 am and finished at 1pm and then we had to play at night as well!! My feet still hurt!
 
blondie

blondie

Member
I thought Shrewsbury carnival was a long march and we've only done it twice with Wem (I think?). Its about 3 miles long stop-start usual stuff, but if any one knows Shrewsbury then theres the hills to take into account, having said that I wouldn't fancy an 8 mile march!!!!!
 
Straightmute

Straightmute

Active Member
St Wilfred's Day in Ripon is one of the longest. You criss-cross the city several times and need to take three breaks to recuperate during the marathon.

A few years ago a actually bandsman died en route (it really is that long) and so they play a hymn in his memory each year (outside Morrison's supermarket). No, no no, no, no.


I did Kirkham as a kid and that was quite extensive but Bamfurlong (just outside Wigan/Abram) was longer - march till you drop, then turn round and march back...

D
 
S

Sparky

Member
A few years ago we did an Armistice Day march around our village. The march itself was only about 2 miles but our bass drummer must have been in a hurry because he was beating around 132 to the minute. As you can imagine we were knackered, but not so knackered as the guy who carried a very large cross on a pole while dressed in church regalia. We thought he was about to expire. It was funny when we look back but we were so tired at the time we couldn't even be bothered to give the bass drummer a kicking. Mind you fate dished out its revenge a year or so later when we were marching and the band diverted around a bollard in the middle of the road. The Bass drummer didn't see it, walked into it and give new meaning to the phrase 'Drum Roll'.

Any more marching disasters out there?
 
iancwilx

iancwilx

Well-Known Member
Fishsta said:
iancwilx said:
We did one at Wrenthorpe near Wakefield a couple of years ago.
It was blazing sunshine and very hot.
We marched about 5 miles, up steep hills, through council estates and down country lanes.
The Solo Trom was not present so the 2nd Trom - Tony Spencer (God Bless him ) - had to play "National Emblem" about 6 times.( A taxing part !!) + about 2 or 3 other "Standard Marches"
We only had 2 Basses, 1 Eb and 1 Bb - the BBb player was purple and just about to collapse, when the Parade turned into a Pub Car Park and the Parade Marshall said "Well done, get yourselves a drink" - we rushed the bar and gave thanks to God it was over.
Half way down the 2nd Pint the Marshall shouts down the bar " Form up, we move off in 2 minutes" - this was received with a stunned silence !!!
We stumbled out of the pub, formed up and marched 5 miles back !!!
We finished ( On our Knees) in a park playing "Death or Glory" - given the choiceI think we would have opted for death !!!!!!
Click to expand...

Geez!!! TEN Miles???

Hope that job pays well.

Bet you pray for rain every year!
Click to expand...
I probably exaggerated the 10 miles bit - but it was a bloody long way !!!!!!!!!!
 
JessopSmythe

JessopSmythe

Active Member
Wem lead the march in Fismes a few years ago which seemed to go on forever. Highlight of the day however was the roundabout, us being british went around it clockwise, the whole of the rest of the parade went the other side :lol:
 
Fishsta

Fishsta

Active Member
That reminds me of a march I did with one of my previous bands... We came to a roundabout, so since we marched 4 abreast, we decided to split into half and go round either side of it.

Except for ONE cornet player, who decided to go straight over the top of it.

We aren't talking a mini-roundabout here... we're talking a grassy circle a couple of yards wide!
 
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