Home Home

 
Index...

Search this site:
1. The Art School, Ford Street, remembered by Liz Bayly
2. Schoolday memories of Pauline Bearcock
3. Little Park Street & Spon Street, by Mick Billings
4. Memoirs of Stoneleigh Abbey, by Catherine Binns
5. Birch family war-time memories and the next generation, by Wendy Lloyd
6. Hillfields memories from the 1930s & 40s, by Jerry Bird
7. Bombers over our Radford Streets, by Jerry Bird
8. Voyage on the Queen Mary with Cecilia Cargill
9. Schoolboy fun around town with Patrick Casey
10. My story of the Blitz, by Maurice Clark (Coventry Kid b.1930)
11. Dunlop Rugby Union Club, by Lorraine Clarke
12. Pre-war memories of Norman Cohen
13. Remembering Courthouse Green School, by Robert Coles
14. The Life of Riley, by Ron Critchlow
15. Wartime memories of Wyken, by Alan Edgson
16. Boyhood Memories of Peter Ellis
17. From boyhood to young adult, by Peter Ellis
18. War and Workplace memories of Mike Fitzpatrick
19. 1974 Telephone Exchange bombing, a personal recollection by John Fuery
20. 1940s & 50s remembered, by Ken Giles
21. World War Two memories of James Hill
22. A selection of 1940s and 50s memories, by Rod Joyce
23. Pictures of a Coventry ancestry, by Lesleigh Kardolus
24. Innocence, by John Lane
25. A plane crash over Exhall, by John Lane
26. Post-War memories of Keith Longmore
27. Growing up in Willenhall, by Josie Lisowski-Love
28. Coventry Zoo and the Hippo attack, by Paul Maddocks
29. The thoughts of a younger Coventrian, by Paul Martin
30. Growing up in Hillfields, by Jan Mayo
31. Winter before central-heating in Hillfields, by Jan Mayo
32. Viewing the Blitz from Birmingham, by Mavis Monk
33. Family memories of Eric Over
34. Early working days of Barry Page
35. Band life with Derick Parsons
36. Brian Porter, A Coventry Kid
37. Experiences of the Coventry Blitz, by Joan Powell
38. War-time memories of Brian Richards
39. War-time memories of Jeanne Richards
40. Coventry Remembered, by Andrew Ross
41. The Coventry outings of Brian Rowstron & family
42. Time Gentlemen Please! - Jo Shepherd's Family
43. The life experiences of Mike Spellacy
44. Humber Works photographs of Peter Thacker
45. Early Coventry memories of Lizzie Tomlinson
46. Minton's milk delivery business, by Pamela Truelove
47. Post-war decades remembered, by Mike Tyzack
48. Fireman Frank Walduck, remembered by Peter Walduck
49. Early memories of Coventry, by Muriel Wells
50. Family memories of Burt West
51. A Childhood in Stoke, by Graham Whitehead
 

Band life with Derick Parsons

Here is a super photo of a band rehearsal for a concert, taken around 1941/42 at what was then the 'New' Hippodrome, which had only been built about four years earlier. The people on stage comprise the Coventry School of Music, and the Bugle and Drum Corps.

The band
If you look carefully, you can spot Derick just to the bass drummer's left at the very back row by the pillar. "...playing tenor drum with twidley pompoms on sticks and all that."
The Hippodrome in 1939
Approaching the Hippodrome in 1939.

Derick can now give us a nice anecdote associated with this photograph....

"I remember Joey Brown, who played the xylophone, was one of the acts that was on the bill on the day of the show. He was a huge round man, and I came up to him in the corridor of the theatre to squeeze by him, and asked for his autograph. He told me to go off in no uncertain manner, if you know what I mean! Not a very sociable person to children at all."


This teasing partial view of the Hippodrome on the left would've been seen by everyone approaching from Trinity Street. The image does little to give away the fact that, once inside this grand old theatre, you were sitting in front of one of the largest stages of any theatre in England.


Derick also remembers that the conductor in the dark uniform was Mr. Major, and the man sitting to his left was J. Parbury of the printers. Mr. Parbury might have been a sponsor but Derick is not absolutely sure about that.

If anyone does have any more information about this band, or even happened to be in the picture, we'd love to hear from you, so we can fill in more names and dates.


 
 
 
Associated pages....
Home | How this site began | Bibliography | About me | My music | Discussion Forum | Steve's website | Historic Stoke, Coventry | Orland family website
Top of the page
3,995,405

Website by Rob Orland © 2002 to 2025