The official "Registration this is it we'll sort it once and for all" meeting of the Mid-England Division Two Bands at the Sir Launcelot Inn, Coventry, descended into ugly stuff on Sunday. The Bandstand is sickened, yet in a strange way also happy due to potential increased traffic for the site, to report that mounted police had to be called in to beat up and then move on a large group of protesters.
Organiser Clarence Baboolly said, "We arranged this meeting for all who care how the Registry issue will affect Mid-England Division Two bands going forwards. Three people had turned up in order to review a white paper I had personally submitted aimed at resolving the issue!"
What the organisers failed to see was that 90 percent of bandsmen in that area do not understand what is going on, and possibly even more of them don't actually care. Sadly they all rocked up for the meeting on Sunday. Frustrated at their lack of understanding of the key issues, and searching their soles to try and rid themselves of the embarrassment of not being bothered, they stood outside the hotel booing and throwing missiles.
Baboolly told the Bandstand, "They were like moths drawn to a flame, like zombies drawn to an American shopping mall. They seemed to feed off of this communal ignorance and indifference off of each other, the less they all knew or cared about what was happening to the Registry, the angrier they became. Then the mob suddenly became a living, breathing, anti-registration behemoth!"
It was then that mounted police moved in. The crowd of people who were angry at why they did not understand the issues surrounding brass band registration and who also were not really that bothered, were trampled underfoot.
It was a sad day. Whoever is proposing registration rules to the Mid-England Division Two bands will not do so lightly! They will all have to think again, assuming there is more than one of them. It will be a rocky and uncomfortable road for the mid-england barometer is set to high!
