Foden's look after their history

Published in Band News on 2013-08-09 by Empty Chairs

More news from Fodens Band

Foden's Band have launched a new project to record as much information about the history of Foden's as possible.

Speaking about the project Band Manager Mark Wilkinson commented  'We are very pleased to welcome Stewart Green to the team who is looking at collating all information on the bands history. As well as collating all this information we are also looking into a reunion concert and meal."

Speaking about his appointment Stewart told Empty Chairs: ' Since listening to the band as a child growing up in Sandbach I like many have been interested in its history. I decided to re-do the information in Allan Littlemore’s excellent book on the history of the band as well as a compilation of all the information from the various books about the band, a list of all the tracks on recordings and as much information about the band that exists. 

Having had access to the old band diary from 1909 and my own histories of the Lyceum Crewe, Sandbach Town hall and theatres in Hanley I have compiled probably the most comprehensive list of engagements of any brass band. Along with help from Jimmy Charles, Granville Jennings, Roy Sparks and Colin Cranson among others I have started to record memories of band members for an audio archive to go along with the computer archive of the bands history.

The Foden’s Band Archive Project is hoping to record the memories of the bands history through archive recordings and personnel memories either in an audio version or written down for all to read. If any one has any stories about when you have seen the band or about your own involvement with the band we would like to record those stories so in the future people can access them to find out about the band’s history in what I hope will be the best band history in the world. 

I have set up an E Mail address, fodenbandarchive@yahoo.co.uk for anyone who has a memory of the band to write their story down and send it to the project co-ordinator. The stories will then be added to the history of the band which will be kept in an official archive and be available for all to see in the future either via a website or at the band room. 

The project is also looking for ex members of the band who could write a short biography of their life from when they started playing to what they are doing today, including stories of their life with the band.

With 113 years of a band in Sandbach there must be a large collection of memorabilia that could be add to the history of the Foden’s band. Since the band has changed hands a number of times most of the archive has been distributed to various ends of the country and so the project has been set up to record as much of this as possible.

We have already uncovered some demo 78’s and rare pictures of the band but are interested in anything connected to the band from old uniforms to LP’s, 45’s and 78’s along with early CD’s as the band has failed to hold onto the 317 releases it has made with over 138, 78’s alone. 

Any items you have that you would like to donate to the archive could be sent to the Band Archive at 65 Congleton Rd, Sandbach, Cheshire CW11 1HP (Stewart Green) or if you have any newspaper articles, photographs or anything that could be scanned, you could send these to the E Mail address above and so you can keep the original as it is the information we are interested in storing on CD / DVD. 

If you would like to see the project so far then E Mail Stewart Green at fodenbandarchive@yahoo.co.uk and he will send you a copy of the history files in PDF format'

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