Around the turn of the last century, when Potterspury wanted to celebrate, they called in the village brass band to provide music, and occasionally to march. It was usually for a fee of £3.
The Potterspury band was both popular and successful. After winning a competition in Dunstable in 1905 and returning home with a splendid silver cup, they were grandly known as the Potterspury Excelsior Prize Brass Band. Pictures from the period show that the ensemble numbered between 15 and 21 players. It all gives the impression of a successful and harmonious organisation.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive.
The majority of village men (and the players were all men) were employed in manual labour at the beginning of the twentieth century, either in agriculture or perhaps at London North Western Railway Carriage Works in Wolverton. Instruments were expensive and they were owned by the band. Players paid a subscription into a common fund to use them.
Steve Parkin has unearthed a very public dispute that threatened the harmony of both the band and the village, pitting neighbours against each other. It centred around ownership of the instruments, an argument so serious it ended in several court cases, which were tried in the Crown Court at Towcester. The local press reported on the financial problems and the subsequent fisticuffs between leading members with great relish. Even the pleas of the Duke of Grafton to end the unpleasantness fell on deaf ears.
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