Eglinton Accordion Band celebrates Emerald Anniversary

The band has strong community links and a tradition of turning out excellent musicians.

Jean Goligher, one of the founder members of Eglinton Accordion Band recalled how the band was founded by Anna Jamison, a relative.

“She would have been called Granny Jamison, but to my family she would have been my aunt. Her family was my cousins and their family again was my second cousins and the whole family was involved in the band, but it was her who started it all off. There was no band in Eglinton. There used to be a pipe band in Eglinton years ago and she started off an accordion band.

“I don’t know if she played the accordion or not or if she just set the band up but it continued from there on. I was 16 when I joined and did not know how to play, but Percy Hamilton, the first bandmaster, taught us all how to play.

“Our dedication of the band took place in 1958, but I would say we all joined in 1957, so we were almost a year learning to play.

Unable to recall what her first parade was, Jean recollected going to Coleraine, but cannot remember the exact year, only that it was one of the earliest parades she took part in.

“I remember we went to Coleraine, but cannot remember what year, but I remember we went to Burntollett, out to a field, I think it was a sports field out in Burntollett.

“I left the band in 1960. I got married in 1960 and Granny Jamison was one of these women that she did not allow married women to remain in the band. You had to go. Once you got married that was it, and each one behind me that got married they had to go too. The only one she kept on was Gretta Hall, for he was not here, her husband, he was stationed across the water. Her maiden name was Parkhill, and she was in the band up until I don’t know. But she was married long after me.

Recalling the early days of parading, Jean said: “We would have paraded the village before we set off to go anywhere and we would have paraded in the evening again when we returned, but when the parade was in the town I remember there was a big long parade. I remember being across the town over at Clarendon Street, we went over that way, it wasn’t just in one place, it wasn’t just as enclosed as it is now. We paraded around the city, but when the Troubles started we stopped going across the town to parade.

Recalling the bandmaster Percy Hamilton and his teaching methods, Jean said: “Oh he was great. He was very strict. Very strict. When you were practicing and when you were playing Percy would have walked up and down each row with the ear tilted to heard were you playing or were you not, and then afterwards you would have been told to ‘Pick up a bit’. So he was very strict.

After Pearcy stepped back Finlay Spratt took over as bandmaster, but by then Jean had left because she had married, but recalls playing alongside Finlay in the band. Although the marriage bar prevented her from playing, Jean was determined to maintain her contact with the band, and took up a position on the committee. She was in the committee from 1975 to the present day - which means she has served the band for almost 40 years, organising outings and fundraising through ticket selling.

“I didn’t think it was hard work,” she said.

Her son, Alastair quips: “She would have been the hardest worker of the lot of them. Us younger ones were the ones complaining”.

To put her work into context, the most recent uniform the band wore, which became obsolete a week ago, took six solid months of fundraising, with events and street collections among the most popular means of getting cash in the coffers, to cobble together the £10,000 they needed.

“That was just steady going out on sponsored walks, selling tickets, rickety wheels...anything we could think of were did. Then you had some of the dedicated members of the band who would have paid for their own uniforms,” said Alastair.

Over the years the band has notched up serious miles parading and not all of them were blessed with pleasant sunshine.

“Some of the parade you would have got a good wetting, you would have been soaked but you did not mind. It was like the fundraising, you did not mind if it was wet or dry it was for the band and that was that,” said Jean

Alastair recalled one incident in particular: “About three years ago we have really bad rain on August 12 and the accordions were all destroyed.”

Jean concurrs: “Aye, they were destroyed. The bellows were destroyed.”

“Every last accordion had to have new bellow sput into them at £250 a time. They were just destroyed. That would have been the worst day the band ever had and costs thousands. It was that wet the jackets we were wearing, the dye was running out of them. That’s how wet it was. When we got home our faces and our hands were red from the dye. Obviously the jacket had been dyed to the red colour, but it was so wet everyone was dripping,” said Alastair, adding that that occasion was the last time the band wore the ‘red uniform’.”With a new season looming new recruits are being sought and anyone that wants to learn an instrument and join Eglinton Accordion Band is asked to contact Alastair Goligher on 0797067227.

l Next week a the Sentinel will publish some large group photographs of the band, including the last meeting in the current uniform.