When King Charles III Met Our Eagley Principal Cornet Lynsey Hayes & MD Chris Wormald

Ever since our MD Chris Wormald returned to lead Eagley Band in September 2016, just over half of the band’s players have comprised his former pupils and award winning instrumentalists from the many World and National Champion Smithills School Senior bands which Chris formed from scratch and conducted continuously for nearly three decades, between 1990 and 2017.

Chris conducted his multiple national and international champion Smithills bands over forty times down in London including eight times at the Royal Albert Hall, over twenty times at the Royal Festival Hall, twice at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, at the Royal Garden Hotel, Hilton Hotel, twice for BBC1 Blue Peter, numerous times for members of the royal family, present and former prime ministers from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown and John Major, senior politicians of the time, numerous film stars and television celebrities, the NUT, TUC, for BBC2, ITV, GMTV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky TV, for multiple television programmes hosted by Melvyn Bragg and Howard Goodall filmed and recorded in central London, at Battersea Arts Centre and at the 1997 Labour Party Conference held in Blackpool and the subsequent visit of former President Bill Clinton in the Imperial Hotel at Blackpool in October 2002.

Back in 1999, on November 9th, our current Eagley Principal Cornet Lynsey Hayes was then the award-winning 17 year old Principal Cornet of Smithills School Senior Brass Band which performed at the Royal Albert Hall for then HRH Prince Charles, now King Charles III. Backstage after the concert, His Royal Highness shook hands with both Lynsey and our MD Chris and chatted at length about their band, the World Premiere performance of Chris’s brand new composition they had just given entitled ‘Saecula Nova’ which is formally dedicated to the King, and for which Chris exchanged personal correspondence with him over many prior weeks, confirming in advance the acceptance of the composition’s dedication.

As His Royal Highness extended his hand to Lynsey backstage at the Royal Albert Hall (pictured), his opening words to her were “Ah, you must be Lynsey Hayes” at which she was completely stunned that a senior member of the Royal family would know her name, or even who she was. Lynsey had performed the opening to Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare For The Common Man’ from the Royal Albert Hall balcony at the very opening of the concert immediately after Chris had conducted the National Anthem and His Royal Highness said “It was so perfect that I really thought it was a CD. Genuinely, I didn’t realise it was ‘live’ players, and from a secondary school in Bolton too, it was outstanding.” He also asked Lynsey, “Do you play a Besson 928 Cornet? Is it British made? I’m not very well up on brass instruments being a Cellist myself.”

Needless to say, everyone backstage was staggered at the now King Charles III and his depth of knowledge.