Royal Marines School of Music Training Company
Director of Music: Major J Burcham BMus (Hons) MMus LRSM AMusTCLRM
Bandmaster: WO1 DV Waller RM
Drum Major: Sgt Bug C Brown RM
A warm welcome once again from everyone here at the Royal Marines School of Music. As usual much has been happening since the last Blue Band edition so here is a whirlwind trip around a few of our departments under the guidance of just a few of the personnel from the School.
Open Day
RMSoM Orchestra (above) and Parade Band (below) perform at Open Day
August the 5th saw the Royal Marines School of Music perform their biggest concert of the year, which is of course Open Day. After a busy term of exams for all trainees, as well as a variety of concerts, open day marked the completion of training for members of Troop 1/08. The hardest parts of open day for most people were the rehearsals in the two weeks leading up to the gig, especially with other commitments within RMSoM. This included a two day trip to Kneller Hall for a joint concert with the Coldstream Guards Band, RAF College Band and members of Training Company. We were all kept extremely busy as, for those two days of the Open Day rehearsals, we had to get the coach straight from Whale Island to travel up to London. The rehearsals at Whale Island culminated in a run-through of the Beat Retreat in full ceremonials on Thursday for the trainees; the heat was not appreciated, but at least it wasn’t raining. However, under the direction of Bandmaster Training, Warrant Officer 1 Waller, the intense rehearsals paid off with a great Beat Retreat after the concert in the Guildhall. The concert had much variety and great performances; credit must particularly go to the soloists who all captured the attention of the audience with their excellent performances. The Director of Music, Major Burcham, ensured the Concert Band was of the highest quality, whilst Warrant Officer 2 Powell conducted the orchestra, again with great results. All the positive feedback from not only the audience, but also the instructors, was much appreciated. Congratulations must of course go to all trainees who completed their M3 or B3 examinations over the course of the year.
Musician Tones
New Entry Troop 1/11 – Initial Military Training
When the Commandant General Royal Marines, Major General Howes, addressed the Royal Marines School of Music at HMS Nelson on the Corps birthday, his key point was highlighting the value of strengthening the ties between the Royal Marines Band Service and the rest of the Corps. Currently, the most tangible example of this occurring is the revised Initial Military Training (IMT) package for New Entry RMBS recruits, which now involves a ten week phase here at CTCRM. Even this early into their careers, Troop 1/11 can really feel how useful it is to train amongst fellow Royal Marines and are enjoying the challenge of being part of a conveyor belt of recruit troops, and working amongst troops that are junior and senior to them. The value of looking at a troop in Week One and seeing how far they’ve come since they were in Week One cannot be underestimated. For an insight into the troop’s recent activities, I’ll hand over to Band Corporal Charlotte Stus…
Field Kit Muster
The Attestation on Day One of IMT for Troop 1/11 seems a distant memory as we prepare for field Exercise ‘Brunswick Star’ at Week Ten. The 37 recruits in the troop have bonded well as a team and are gradually beginning to understand the idea of military bearing and urgency! We are now fully settled into life at CTCRM after the initial five weeks of foundation training at HMS Nelson. The training environment here is much better suited to instilling the ethos of the Royal Marines and how the Band Service fits into the overall picture.
Having mastered the basics of field administration and field craft, the troop are well-rehearsed in the wet and dry routine and harbouring at varying times of the day and night! All recruits passed their week on the range, firing up to 300m and practising various firing positions. They all worked particularly hard due to the challenging weather conditions and enjoyed a swift run down to the ‘ogin’ as a treat for doing so well! Troop 1/11 have also completed training in CBRN and are the first New Entry Troop in the Corps to don the new issue respirators (GSR), which depicted a scene from Star Wars: multiple Darth Vaders shouting, “GAS, GAS, GAS”!
Field Kit Inspection
The troop have been introduced to the infamous bottom field this week and also have the mud run to look forward to; this is a challenging team-work exercise that will take place after four days in the field, concentrating on their map-reading skills by day and night. If the first ten weeks of training are anything to go by, it will be Christmas before we know it and five proud instructors will be watching Troop 1/11 pass out of phase one training, on CTCRM’s hallowed parade ground, on December 15th.
Field PT period
Although I may be tempting fate, I must remark that thus far not a single member of Troop 1/11 has left training. This, I believe, is testament to four connected factors: the success of the RMBS recruiting procedures; the continued support of the troop’s families and friends; and the tenacity and commitment of the troop itself; and finally, the cohesiveness of the troop is down to the professionalism of the Military Training Team, under the excellent leadership of Colour Sergeant Paul O’Gorman, and I thank them all sincerely for their diligence in training this troop. Finally, we all thank Command Training Wing (CTW) under its OC, Lieutenant Colonel Chattin, for his ongoing support as we nestle into long-established training routines at CTCRM.
WO2 Ross Hunt – Troop Commander of New Entry Troop 1/11
Lympstone to Poole
Training for the Lympstone to Poole Race started back in the Summer Term. Although we all agreed to take part in an 88 mile race (as if that wasn’t mad enough), it wasn’t until later that we learnt that we would have to run with back packs, over undulating coastline and against the Commandos! Come September we had just enough willing volunteers to make two teams.
We travelled down to CTCRM Lympstone on the Tuesday evening. Musician Tones and Bugler Williams wasted no time on their race preparation by gorging on take-away on the journey! We all gathered in Lympstone Band Room to sort our route cards and weigh in our kit but not before a trip to the local pub of course! Settled into our luxury Lympstone accommodation, we rested before an early start on the Wednesday morning.
All the teams gathered at the Upper Field Pavilion before setting off on an overcast Wednesday morning. The first two pairs to leave were Warrant Officer 2 Hunt, Musician Tones, Corporal King and myself. As was expected, Warrant Officer 2 Hunt and Musician Tones (or “Team Badger”) shot off out of sight very quickly, leaving Corporal King and me (“Team Squirrel”) with the Team from Plymouth Band. The first few miles were fairly flat and followed by the famous Endurance Course. It wasn’t until we reached our first Checkpoint that the terrain became altogether more hilly! As we descended into Sidmouth we were shocked to see a team running in the opposite direction! The team had missed their first checkpoint and had to run back up the cliff to continue the race. They were later awarded a prize for their integrity. Every few miles we were spurred on by our support driver, Colour Sergeant Boorer, and our team mates who would pop out from behind bushes and cars as if from nowhere! When we finally reached Seaton, our handover point, we were pleased to see we were not in fact last. We finished our leg in 4 hours 31 minutes. Except for Musician Tones and me the race was not over as we hopped on the Wagon with Sergeant Cook to rush back to Portsmouth for a degree lesson! Somewhere much further ahead after surviving “jungle-like conditions”, Sergeant Harvey and Musician Savage were navigating one of the highest peaks in the South of England, the “Golden Cap“, which was descended in style with ‘jazz hands’. They also had the pleasure of finishing with a 3 mile stretch of shingle. Warrant Officer 2 Hunt and Sergeant Harvey followed this up by a dip in the sea shouting “Come on in! The water’s lovely!”
We returned to the halfway point to be greeted by Musician Prior’s makeshift Sports Massage Clinic which had sprung up in the Holiday Park’s laundrette! We all slept in tents that night, apart from Musician Tones who had commandeered the back of the half-cab bus as his home, from home complete with cot bed.
The teams lined up again on the start line for the second day with somewhat less enthusiasm than the first, not least because the leg started with a hill! The route took us around the countryside North of Weymouth with views stretching out across the sea (which distracted us slightly from our weary legs!). We were once again greeted at every opportunity by the support team who came armed with bananas and bottled water. The best surprise of the day came when we were treated to Callipo Ice Lollies courtesy of the Plymouth Band Support team. With 5 miles left to go I unwittingly remarked that we were “almost there”. How wrong I was. After ascending from Osmington Mills, we were tried by a stretch of the race known only as “The Rollercoaster.” Our quads took a big hit as we tackled the three steep inclines and descents. We celebrated crossing the line in the style of Musician Savage: with jazz hands whilst prancing from side to side. The last part of the race was then undertaken by Musician Bailey and Bugler Williams; Sergeant Harvey and Musician Savage (who had lost all enthusiasm by this stage) decided that they didn’t want the race to end and felt like doing more but eventually came in to finish.
At the end of the race we were congratulated by none other than our ex PTI Sergeant Rose who had one thing to say; “Strong!”. Overall the B “Squirrell” Team came in 12th out of 21 and the A “Badger” Team came in 4th; a result to be proud of considering our bootneck competition.
Musician Worsfold
Ooooo Argh!
Trafalgar Night and the Corps birthday were celebrated in true style by the trainees on Wednesday the 26th of October with a joint HMS Victory themed fancy dress party. The coffee boat was transformed by night with the addition of flags, cannon balls, pirates and, of course, lots of port.
The evening’s activities kicked off with the mess beatings, performed excellently by the Corps of Drums followed much to DOM(T)’s amusement by the beef party which included music performed by Musicians Wade, Forde and Booth, as well as the addition of a lot of port being spilt by a rather “camp” sailor, or Musician Tones as we all like to call him.
Fancy Dress at the Royal Marines School of Music Social
Music fit for the occasion was organised by Musician Rowlands, all of which the trainees clearly enjoyed with some “interesting” dance moves. Among the many pirates, costumes included a “seaweed man”, a “plank” and a boat “HMS Barrowman” Musician Martin, who won the competition and stole the show with his costume consisting of sails, a wooden frame and a hole somewhere in the middle.
A ‘small' sea shanties competition took place and songs were performed by the three houses at the horror of
Judge Mr Powell. Even the instructors, who we finally managed to drag up to sing, didn’t prove to be much competition. However, Gloucester house were crowned the winners, and I believe more port may have been introduced somewhere!
On behalf of the trainees I would like to thank Band Corporal Harvey for all of his efforts and help in the organisation of the social, helping to make it highly enjoyable; a night to remember!
Musician Pascoe
Visit to the School
On the 2nd of March 1991 Tony Bilbrough presented an original pastel painting by Eric Buckman of "Canterbury Cathedral” to the Junior Band of the Royal Marines School of Music, Deal, on the occasion of “The Jean Bilbrough Memorial Concert”. Some 20 years later, Tony tracked down the painting in September this year when he made a visit to the Royal Marines School of Music, now in Portsmouth, with his son Nigel.
During their visit, after viewing the picture and having this photo taken, they spent time listening to the Concert Band, had lunch in the Mess, and finished their day with a tour of HMS Illustrious. He was happy to see that the picture is still in prime condition and is hung in pride of place in the Conference Room at the Royal Marines School of Music, and can now rest assured it will be looked after for many years to come.
Last updated 03 April 2012
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