The FINAL Savage Report

AND NOW, THE END IS NEAR...
A True Story by Steve Savage aged 44 years, 11 months and counting…

In preparation for my retirement on 23 April this year, I was busy working out where to get a decent pair of slippers from and on what day ‘The Archers Omnibus’ is broadcast, when the phone rang. ‘Twas the Editor asking me if I would write a final article for the Blue Band about my time in the Band Service, but it would need to be with him by 1200 the following day. How could I refuse the opportunity to tell my avid reader what life in the Band Service has meant to me? I tried, but the Editor wouldn’t let me.

Despite the fact that I went to see the PDM last week for my final chat, I really left the Band Service in May last year, as a Medical Board deemed me unfit to continue working with the Band Service. However, they felt that I was still able to work in some sort of capacity within the Royal Navy and therefore set about transferring me to a Navy line number. That was just the worst time for me. There I was looking at a life without music, very little contact with the Band Service and not knowing where on God’s earth the Navy were going to send me. In the meantime however, I found a niche at BRNC managing the newly relocated Warrant Officers’ Staff Course for the Royal Navy, although the job didn’t technically exist. Initially, the Navy decided to send me to the training school at HMS Raleigh (nice!); however, after much rattling of cages and with a lot of high-powered consultation, the HMS Raleigh line number was allowed to be ‘borrowed’ by BRNC and so I carried on working with the Staff Course until my resettlement period and terminal leave kicked in.

Reminiscing a little now. As a kid, music was only ever a hobby and if I’m honest, I never thought I would forge a career out of it. Through playing in local bands on the Isle of Wight I met up with Maurice Keat, the then VBI at HMS Daedalus, and Barry Radford, an Ex-Band Corporal who was a peripatetic teacher. There is no doubt in my mind that it is through their combined teaching and advice that I am sitting here writing this article. I cannot begin to thank them enough.

Looking back at my career of 28-plus years I can’t help smiling. Whilst you can never, nor should you ever, erase the difficult, emotional and even devastating times from your memory, you instinctively remember all the good stuff first and my 18 months in FOF3’s band was probably the best! It wasn’t so much a case of ‘Work hard, play hard'; it was more a case of ‘Play hard, with a bit of work thrown in as long as it didn’t get in the way of drawing the beer ration’!

I have since been involved, in one form or another, in some great and memorable gigs: umpteen MFMs, the Halifax International Tattoo – great, on so many levels!, Horseguards – yep, if you’re really honest they’re great gigs, RMT 2000, the Queen Mother’s 100th Birthday Parade and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, to name but a few. I did, however, manage to do only one Royal Tournament and I’ve not done a single Edinburgh Tattoo. Is that cries of envy I hear? I’ve performed at some great venues and some dreadful ones and I’ve played some amazing music. And yes, there have been times in my formative years when the music was amazing but for all the wrong reasons – ‘Cornet Carillon’ in the Assembly Rooms in Derby, 1982, springs to mind! Thankfully that is all in the past and the Band Service continues to raise its already high standards and performs music of the highest quality. Long may it continue to do so.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those I have served with over the years for making life in the Band Service one hell of a ride. I sincerely wish all those still serving the very best of fortune and all I can say is that I hope you make the best of every opportunity and enjoy it while you can, because I firmly believe that being in the Band Service is the finest job on the planet – except maybe being Halle Berry’s dresser – and retirement comes around way, way too quickly.

The Blue Band would like to pass on its best wishes to Warrant Officer Savage for using his own time to write 'Tha Savage Reports'. His witty insight into the life of the Royal Marines Band Service will be greatly missed by all its readers and we would like to publicly thank him for his writings.