Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/14/2003 4:24:00 PM PST by MadIvan
HEAVY-METAL music wafts up from the Navy bars, DVDs are playing on the ship’s televisions and Kylie calendars are pinned up on more than one cabin wall. But a more traditional form of entertainment is also proving a big hit among British forces in the Gulf.
The Royal Marines band is taking helicopters and boats from its base on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus to play morale-boosting concerts for the sailors and soldiers on board Royal Navy ships.
The 39 musicians, who all play two instruments and double up as stretcher-bearers to bring wounded personnel into the RFA Argus hospital, knock out everything from pop to jazz, big band numbers, marching songs and Royal Navy classics.
For Colour Sergeant Dave Sharp, 47, the highlight of their operation so far was the fervour that the band generated performing for hundreds of servicemen and women in their cavernous hangars on HMS Ocean and HMS Ark Royal.
“You are on a Navy warship going to war. You are playing Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia and there are guys aged 18 to 48 singing passionately,” said Colour Sergeant Sharp, who plays the clarinet, saxophone and violin when not leading the band’s fitness training.
“If you ask them normally to sing Rule Britannia, they would laugh at you. But they were singing with a passion, with their fists clenched. I have never experienced that before.”
For the band, their success is all the sweeter because they were formed only in January, when they were told to pack their instruments and head to the Gulf. The group was picked from five Marine bands to get a balance of instruments and because so many Marines had to remain in Britain to cover for striking firefighters.
Captain Nick Grace, the leader, is proud of his band. “On several ships it has been tangible how much effect we’ve had on morale. You cannot put a price on raising morale.”
Other servicemen and women seem to agree. “The best band in the forces,” is the verdict of one naval officer on Argus. “Some Army bands are horrible, playing wrong notes and so on, but this band is so tight.”
Newcomers in the band have been amazed by the reaction to their concerts, as well as the huge range of skills they have been required to master.
Sam Hairsine, 21, from Beverley, East Yorkshire, plays euphonium and cello and finished his musician’s training at a Royal Navy music school in September.
“I got to the band and the first thing the bandmaster said was: ‘You’re going firefighting.’ Then this came up. The concerts we have played out here have been amazing — completely different from any other concert I’ve done. It’s such a buzz.”
The logistics of ferrying a 39-strong band carrying two instruments each between concerts on ships scattered across the Gulf are not straightforward. It took six helicopter flights to move the band and their instruments from FRFA Argus to HMS Ark Royal. For another gig, the band had to winch their instruments precariously down the side of RFA Argus into a boat.
During the day band members are required to undertake at least one hour’s strenuous fitness work and train hard for their more serious role as stretcher- bearers should the hospital wing on RFA Argus receive casualties.
For Claire Cooper, 22, a Marine from Ipswich, the trips to perform before hundreds of sailors and soldiers on HMS Ocean and HMS Ark Royal were a welcome break. She has Grade Eight in trombone and cello and considers herself a “musician first, but not at the moment”.
For her the concerts have been the highlight of Operation Telic. “It’s been good to play some music for a change,” she said.
Regards, Ivan
RULE BRITTANIA
When Britain first,
at Heaven's command Arose from out the azure main;
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
Chorus
Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations, not so blest as thee
Must, in their turns to tyrants fall
Must, in their turns to tyrants fall
While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free
The dread and envy of them all.
(Chorus)
Still more majestic shalt thou rise
More dreadful from each foreign stroke
More dreadful from each foreign stroke
As the loud blast, the blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
(Chorus)
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame
All their attempts to bend thee down
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse, arouse thy generous flame
But work their woe, and thy renown.
(Chorus)
To thee belongs the rural reign
Thy cities shall with commerce shine
Thy ci-ties shall with commerce shine
All thine shall be, shall be the subject main
And every shore it circles thine.
(Chorus)
The Muses, still with freedom found
Shall to thy happy coast repair
Shall to thy happy coast repair
Blest isle with matchless, with matchless beauty crowned
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
(Chorus)
God Bless the Brits and their support of us!
fuque france
marlin
Got to love a people who are not afraid to wave their countries flag.
Refrain - Pomp and Circumstance from Edward Elgar's "Coronation Ode", 1902
A. C. Benson 1862-1925
Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned.
God make thee mightier yet!
On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
Once more thy crown is set.
Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
Have ruled thee well and long;
By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
Thine Empire shall be strong.
Land of Hope and Glory,
Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee,
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bounds be set;
|
: God, who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet. :|
Thy fame is ancient as the days,
As Ocean large and wide:
A pride that dares, and heeds not praise,
A stern and silent pride:
Not that false joy that dreams content
With what our sires have won;
The blood a hero sire hath spent
Still nerves a hero son.
Back during the Falklands War my dad (who served with the 79th Camerons in WWII) was following events with interest. We were all sitting around the TV one night when National Geographic happened to put a special on about the Thames. The final scene fetched up at the Royal Naval College on the night of the Nelson Dinner. The camera panned up the center of the hall as all the naval cadets stood for a toast to Lord Nelson, then roared out "Rule Britannia" at the tops of their young voices.
My father observed this phenomenon, bourbon in hand, and remarked to the room at large, "The Argies have $#!% for brains."
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