On Sunday June 25th we once again supported and took part in the Blackburn & Darwen Band annual march and hymn tune contest staged in Darwen town centre. This year there were a huge twenty bands participating for adjudicator Russell Gray to rank in order including half of the entrants from the Championship and First Sections.

Drawn to play number one at noon, we chose to march to Army of The Nile, perform Ravenswood as our contest march and finish with the William Himes setting of Amazing Grace to conclude.

It was a unique and very special day for us at Eagley and especially for our Bass Trombonist Dec Cullen as our MD Chris Wormald asked him some weeks ago if he would like to conduct the hymn tune at the contest, which Dec duly did. This was Dec’s first ever public conducting and he was thrilled and honoured to direct the band, especially in a competition for his first ever public conducting engagement. Our MD swapped roles with Dec and played Bass Trombone in Amazing Grace as had been the case in the rehearsals leading up to Sunday.

When the results were posted on social media late in the evening, we were really pleased to have been placed eleventh overall out of the twenty bands and given that we played first in the contest, our result was a really positive one.