Between the 2nd and 6th June 2006, Godalming Band undertook a trip to Herpen
Holland in order to join the the celebrations of 75
years of music with the Sint Hubertus Brassband.
We all assembled at the bandroom at Farncombe at 5 am, to
board the coach which took us to
Saturday saw us all making a trip to the neighbouring
village of Ravenstein, with its fully working windmill,
before returning to Herpen where we attended the
opening ceremony of the memorial plaque and then marched with the Sint Hubertus band to the recreation hall. We then had our
evening meal at the Wok restaurant in Herpen and then
attended their "Night of the Beans" concert, which included a mixture
of acts, one of which was a juggler who juggled with chain saws. Our conductor
David Wright was very taken with this act, and we look forward to his attempts
to reproduce it at a future concert (OK, this may be stretching the truth just
a little bit :-) ).
Sunday morning saw us attending the mass
of celebration at the church, and a septet of Godalming players providing some music
during the service as well as joining with the Sint
Hubertus band at the end for a rendition of "
On Monday we went to the nearby town of s'Hertogenbosch
on the junction of the Dommel and Aa rivers, which go under the city in a canal network
called the Binnendieze. Some of the band took a ride
on the tour boats that navigate around this. After
this we attended the Jazz festival that was taking place in the city, before
returning to Herpen for an informal band contest with
7 other local bands. The end of the evening was a massed bands performance with
all 8 bands involved, which if nothing else was certainly loud!
The return journey on Tuesday saw us
leaving Herpen at 10.00, with stopovers at a Belgian
chocolate factory and a French supermarket in order to
stock up with essentials (chocolate and wine, obviously), before returning on
the ferry and arriving back at our bandroom by 8 pm.
Many thanks must go to the members of Sint Hubertus Brassband who took
us into their homes and made us feel so welcome throughout our stay. Also, we
are very, very grateful to Ray Pont our chairman who took on organising this event
and made it into the success that it was.
Phil Kingsbury
10 june 2006