Band halt … please

While serving in the United Kingdom and Ireland Territory, Tracey and I were invited to lead Easter meetings at the Bellshill Corps in Scotland. Pronounced ‘Bell’s Hill’, it was originally a separate town but is now regarded as part of Greater Glasgow.

When we arrived – billeted by the corps officers, which was lovely – they informed us that the band also did a march after the Sunday service, and we were welcome to take part in it if we wished. Tracey wished not, but I said I would and marched up front with the corps officers.

Before the meeting, Tracey and I met with the band, worship leaders and corps officers for some final announcements and prayer. The bandmaster reminded us all of the march and to ‘form up’ promptly after the meeting had concluded.

The service finished, and within about 10 minutes, we were formed up on the street next to the corps and started marching. After going about 20 metres, we turned onto the main street and the band started playing.

About 30 seconds later, the police arrived. They had flashing lights on their car and pulled to the side of the road; a policewoman jumped out of the car and started waving at us to stop and get off the road.

Well … it’s hard to stop a brass band when they’re midway through section B of ‘Emblem of the Army’. So, they just kept playing and we just kept marching, and the policewoman just kept waving and yelling.

After a minute, the corps officer peeled off and went to talk to her and I thought, “Surely we had permission to march”, as these days you have to alert the police and seek permission for the band to march – especially on the main street through town.

After a few moments, the officer returned to the march and gave me a thumbs-up and a smile. The policewoman took up a position a few metres in front of us and walked down the street for the duration of the march, and her colleague drove the police car behind us the whole way.

When we’d looped around a few blocks and returned to the corps, the band all seemed to hurry inside, and I asked the officer what the problem was. He was quite apologetic in his response.

“There’s a city band concert on his afternoon with a guest soloist, and most of our band want to attend it. We had permission to do a street march from 11.30 but, in their haste to get away, we started the march at 11.20. So rather than getting here to stop the traffic and help us, the police arrived to see us already marching down the street!’

The corps officer said that the policewoman told him that technically, she could have arrested the whole band for ‘participating in a non-sanctioned street parade on a public thoroughfare’ (because our approved start time was 11.30) but decided to let us off because it was Easter and we were a church.

Sure, Jesus had left the tomb, but we’d nearly entered a prison cell!

Major Mal Davies is the Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division