12.12.1996

Militant marshal music

Dave Douglass reviews Brassed off (directed by Michael Herman, UK)

This dynamic, well observed drama, based upon the Yorkshire pit community in the last stand against closures in 1992-93 and centring largely on Grimethorpe and the state of its band, has caused quite a stir beyond its low budget expectations.

The film is unashamedly sympathetic to the pit communities and brings the anti-social wanton destruction of countless communities back to centre stage. It is only mildly political by and large and not the sort of leftist preaching which would get non-politicos shuffling for the nearest exit.

It is firmly but quietly subversive, but hardly dangerous, considering it traces our final major defeat.

This is testified to most graphically by the fact that some of the pit shots and scenes are done on location at Hatfield, undoubtedly with the approval of the thoroughly anti-union management, who, whilst not allowing the real-life activists of the period anywhere on site, is happy to have actors and actresses playing our parts and to take over the surface for purposes of the film, something which brassed me off for a start.

The film breaks some ground in the powerful portrayal of the music of the colliery brass bands. A creature of artistic challenge to the tender orchestras of the middle class. Though wildly misunderstood by the petty-bourgeois leftists, marshal music at the head of marching columns of militant working people qualitatively changes the direction of the composition, regardless of their original motivation and authorship.

Brass band music really has its origins in the chartist movement, when people were marching in columns, drilling and were armed. Marshal music was used with a revolutionary message and was meant to be threatening. After the Peterloo massacre there were mass demonstrations of millions of working class people all over the country.

The week after the massacre 80,000 people assembled on the town wall in Newcastle, led by brass bands playing marshal music. The home office reported that at least 800 of the demonstrators were heavily armed.

The demonstration was led by bands playing ‘Scots were here’, which was the anthem of the Tyneside radicals, but also ‘Rule Britannia’. This may seem to contradict the purpose of the march; but they were talking of an ethical version of England, a true England, meaning an end to tyranny and oppression - the state did not represent the true English people.

It was true that at certain times the colliery managers liked the bands, but they certainly did not like 80,000 people marching behind them. Miners’ banners at that time had inscriptions such as: “He who has no sword, let him sell his shirt and buy one.”

If one was to nit-pick, I would say the final speech in the film by the old band master was inaccurate in the use of Anglo-Saxon swear words. A man of his generation, self respect and standing in the community would have made such a speech in terms of politics and power, but pointedly done so without crude language, which he would have considered demeaning.

The film when shown in Doncaster drew cheers and heckling from the thoroughly absorbed and obviously mining audience. I am told that it has had a similar response from audiences in the capital and elsewhere. It is worth seeing.

Dave Douglass
vice-chair,
South Yorkshire NUM panel