Far from brassed off

Those who play in a Northern brass band have a lung capacity similar to that of an Olympic athlete and, as Rebecca Oliver discovers, they’re not likely to run out of puff any time soon

- Rebecca Oliver

PERCHED high above the urban sprawl of Bradford, Queensbury is an unassuming village of typical Yorkshire stone terraces.

Looming over the houses is the solitary, sooty chimney of the Black Dyke Mills, dormant since John Foster & Sons moved manufacturing of its cloth to more convenient premises in 1989. Foster & Sons has survived against all the odds and so has the brass band associated with its mill—the Black Dyke Band.

John Foster (1798–1879) wasn’t only a canny businessman and entrepreneur, he was also a rather good French-horn player. Foster and other industrialists encouraged their employees to pursue ‘improving’ hobbies in what little leisure time they had and music was seen as a healthy distraction for the working classes from pubs, gambling and politics. An 1881 edition of Brass Band News solemnly declared ‘were it not for the Brass Band (an institution so zealously cultivated), what an incomprehensible void would be created in the national recreation of our manufacturing and rural populations’.

Brass music was familiar to people of all classes through military, church and village bands and the instruments were affordable thanks to mass manufacturing, so Foster created the Black Dyke Band in 1855: thus, one of England’s oldest brass ensembles was born.