You could be excused for thinking you’d seen this, a couple of years ago, and you’d be right. This was scheduled but had to be cancelled for health and safety reasons after we were pitched into a storm with gale-force winds and decided that having visitors in was too much of a risk to life and limb!

This time, as previously with ‘The Snowman’, the performance was flawless. The format involved a narrator (starting in costume as Marley’s ghost) reading extracts from the book, interspersed with Christmas music played by the band.

For me, as one born and bred in Lancashire, the evening took me back to my childhood in the 1960’s, when every town and village had a brass band, not to mention industrial works (of which Fairey Aviation was just one, along with Fodens, Black Dyke Mills, Royal Doulton, CWS, et al.) and, of course, the mines, such as Grimethorpe Colliery Band. To add to this were the bands maintained by churches and, possibly most significantly, the Salvation Army. Our village Walking Day (an event in which I hated being involved) was accompanied by two such – Rainford Silver Band and Bedford Church, Leigh, and the sound of a brass band, 67 years on, still invokes memories of those times. It was a tradition predominant, in particular, in the northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire – we have more in common than the Wars of the Roses would ever have suggested! Many years on, that tradition has faded somewhat, and it was good to see younger members of the Fairey Band keeping a sound alive which is absolutely exclusive to those big groups of brass instruments. Some of the players probably don’t even realise how significant the bands were to the fabric of society in the north, but once it has gone, it will be too late to rue the fact. As one who was, many years ago, a trombonist of little talent, I am nevertheless in a position to appreciate how good their playing really was; I didn’t hear a single ‘fluffed’ note, which is something quite common when pursing the lips to hit a high note. So, on a personal level, thanks once more to the Fairey Band, and may it go from strength to strength into the future!