Jim Mason
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Deal 1939In 1939 the Band Service, like everyone else, worked a permanent 7 day week, including the compulsory Chyrch Parade every Sunday, when the whole of the barracks paraded on North Barracks parade and then marched via the north gate on to The Strand, along The Strand and in to Canada Road, to church.
On the first Sunday after the outbreak of war, this routine was changed because of the military activities on Walmer seafront, which was closed to traffic, and the parade was re-routed along the narrow road that runs parallel to the seafront, unfortunately not informing anyone of the change.
As the band entered this narrow street, an irate miner who had just done the night shift at Betteshanger, and was enjoying a lie-in, threw the contents of a chamber pot over the Drum Major, one Fred Tobin, who was later a survivor from HMS BARHAM and after retiring as a Bandmaster was landlord of a pub on Deal seafront and often described the event to his customers!
The local magistrates took no action against the miner, judging it to be a reasonable response!! Fred always described the sinking of the BARHAM and the episode of the chamber pot as the two most memorable events in his career!
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lesbryan
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I could realy imagine that.when i came out of the andrew i went in the pits.when i lived in old streets in the 70's and i had worked on a saturday night.the sally army at the end of the street at 0900 on sunday morning it used to get my goat but wyhat the hell .No PISSPOTS THOUGH   
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General Melchett
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Reminds me of rehearsals for the return of the Stone of Scone (soon to be retitled the Slab of Despair). Many rehearsals at 0300 to 0600 from the Castle all the way down the Mile to Holyroodhouse, stand still - (everyone always enjoys practicing standing still! especially in mid December. We were thawing the ice around where we stood, so when we marched off there was a lovely imprint of a Band of 35 where we had been. Anyhow, back to the story.... We'd step off at 0300 leading the Naval Guard and the Army street liners down the Royal Mile. Even though it was Bass Drum beating only this used to hack the residents off massively, crunching of boots etc. They were hanging out of the windows slagging us off in true Jockanese fashion. Come the last rehearsal the CoD decided to give them something to complain about and gave it everything, banging the living daylights out of Drums and the rest of the Percussion Sect. My, how that cheered them up......
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admin
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Ahhhhh Deal and parades! The baptism of fire that we all had to endure was the one and only Junior Band leading the Deal Carnival.
Spend hours cleaning your kit to have it washed in beer by the locals! The year we did it one of the locals looked out of their window and knocked a plant pot off their window ledge. Incomming! Luckily, the pot missed anyone below but it could have ended in tears. I miss those parades in Deal
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