Day 1 - Outbound Journey
written by Richard Woodrow - Flugel Horn
Home Corps (Church): Norwich Citadel
Positions Held: Bandmaster
Occupation: Property Solicitor
Welcome to our tour blog, which we hope will give you a flavour of our experiences, observations and recollections of what we’re sure will be a great trip!
Day 1 was all about getting here. We met at Heathrow’s impressive Terminal 5 building at 11am to check in for our flight to Seattle – minus Gary Fountain and Brad Turnbull, whose work requirements mean that they will have to travel a day later and meet up with us in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Check in was relatively trouble-free, including negotiation of the excess baggage charge for our instruments. Thanks to the negotiation skills of Kevin Coates (and one or two others) we reached a settlement with BA (without recourse to ACAS). The 9-hour flight itself was very smooth, passing over Greenland, at which point the temperature outside the cabin was -67°C – albeit at 37,000 ft.
The flight was also a great opportunity for us to spend time with each other, which (as Stuart Hall observed) is rarely the case on a busy rehearsal evening. Our Executive Officer’s worst fears – alphabetical seating which would leave him next to Chris House for 9 hours – were not confirmed!
With 33 of us in travel uniform, the usual questions – ‘who are you?’, ‘where are you going?’, and ‘why?’ – were frequently asked and answered. I had one conversation in particular with a former Band Sgt Major from the Royal Corps of Signals, who was interested in why the SA bands don’t enter contests – I hope my explanation of our purpose were adequate.
On arrival at Seattle we were greeted by Bandmaster Neil Smith, Territorial Music Secretary for the USA Western Territory. One or two delays with baggage reclaim at Seattle meant that time was tight for us to make our second flight, down the coast to Los Angeles, but we made it. Another smooth flight saw us land at 10.30pm local time (5.30am Sat BST) to be welcomed by Divisional Bandmaster Kevin Larsson, and a coach to take us straight to our hotel for an overdue good night’s sleep! Tomorrow, the tour starts in earnest!