Cruel blow for Grimethorpe as band fights to keep afloat
THE band which inspired the hit film Brassed Off is one of hundreds fighting for survival after Covid-19 slashed its revenue and any chance it had to rehearse.
Grimethorpe Colliery Band normally gets together six times a week and performs to 150,000 people a year worldwide.
But now it is one of 400 ensembles in the Yorkshire brass band heartland which leaders say “are at real risk of collapsing”.
An appeal has been launched by the Brass Bands England charity, which hopes to save the bands.
The most well-known, Grimethorpe, was formed in 1917 by the pitmen of the South Yorkshire village, near Barnsley. It became a national institution after providing both the plot and soundtrack for 1996’s Brassed Off, which starred Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan Mcgregor.
As four-time national champions the band has performed at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, at the FIFA World Cup and Bafta awards. It had been scheduled to perform at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall film event in April last year but it was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Broadcast on Channel 4 instead, all 28 members joined together online from their homes to perform a moving version of Danny Boy to honour NHS heroes.
But members need to rehearse six times a week to prepare properly and would need a much larger practice room owing to social distancing.
Before Christmas, the band had already lost 90 per cent of its £150,000-a-year revenue, with 30 concerts axed. They had hoped to claw back much of it over the festive season, when bands busk and play carol concerts.
But according to Brass Bands
England, based in Barnsley, the situation is now dire.
Sarah Baumann, education and development co-ordinator, said: “The virus situation is escalating daily. Our priority now is to support our bands at a time of real crisis.
“Bands have rent commitments, contractual obligations to conductors and financial commitments to projects. Without funds they are at real risk of collapsing altogether.”
Grimethorpe director and cornet player Andrew Coe, 60, confirmed that fans had already donated £10,000 to the band’s coffers but their costs are sky-high.
He said: “For us it is particularly ser serious because we do n not have sponsorship ship. We just rely on wo working really hard a and are normally the busiest brass band out there, doing 30 to 40 concerts a year.
“We are one of the biggest names in the brass band world and are just surviving. We lost 90 per cent of our revenue last year and it is looking likely we will lose a big part of this year’s too. It is a very serious situation for communities up and down the country.
“Brass bands are a very British export which has a global reach.
“To potentially lose all that, and to have that legacy disappear because of a virus, would be catastrophic.”
Meanwhile, just down the road Barnsley Brass, formed in 1906, is struggling to find money to maintain their instruments, including £10,000 just to fix the four tubas.
Manager Martin Bland said: “We usually spend all December busking and raise enough to keep the band going for the next year. But that didn’t happen last month.”