Dambusters 80th anniversary concert comes to Chichester
The Central Band of the RAF are offering the Dambusters 80th anniversary concert at St Paul's Church, Chichester on Saturday, May 27 at 7.30pm.
The band will be marking the 80th anniversary of Operation Chastise, commonly known as the Dambusters Raid, on behalf of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund at an event being organised by Martin Ewence. Martin is promising a very special night indeed from a group of outstanding musicians: “My daughter Poppy joined the RAF Band in 2019. She had ten weeks’ basic training and went on to be the principal oboe in the RAF Central Band. I think she liked the fact of the military service. My wife was a nurse and I was in the Navy for 30 plus years and I think she just put the two together. I've teased her about being in the RAF because that's what navy people do! And I still tease her but it is lovely to have that banter within the family.
“The RAF bands take a very pragmatic approach. If you have the qualification in music then providing you pass all the physical and isometric testing that they do as part of the service in the military, then you're taken on for basic training. You do the same training everybody does. It is very physical and quite outward bound-like and it tells you about the RAF and gets you into the RAF way of thinking. But in the band it is a huge range of music that you can do from what we would call classical through to jazz and through to modern music and marches. It covers the whole gamut and there are some extremely talented musicians many of whom have studied at school and then studied either academically or in music and many of whom have gone on to do postgraduate courses as Poppy did. Poppy went to Kings College London and then to the Royal College of Music. I've organised concerts in the past and because of my naval background it was with the Royal Marines band but now with Poppy in the RAF, I have switched to the RAF and the great thing with this one is that it is coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the Dambusters raids. Chichester had a strong connection with the RAF during the war and a huge amount of history here. The concert is raising money for the RAF Benevolent Fund and I would like to clear £5,000 which we will do if we sell all the tickets, and we have got some good sponsors as well.”
The cost of the ticket includes a programme as well as a glass of wine during the interval. Tickets are £25 plus £1.95 booking fee, available from ticketsource. Doors open at 6.45pm; the concert starts at 7.30pm; St Paul's Church, Chichester, PO19 6FT A spokesman said: “The RAF Benevolent Fund is here to support people who are serving – or have served – and their families when they need it most. People who have served in the RAF are trained to be self-reliant. They don’t want to make a fuss and they don’t want to be a burden. So all too often, when life gets tough, they suffer in silence. We don’t believe anyone who has served their country should have to struggle through life.”