In everyday life, the Internet grew more and more commonplace and a large part of the population became surgically attached to a variety of electronic devices, which required them to walk about head down, looking glum. Banding magazines carried polls that showed almost no one listened to any music other than pop, so not a surprise that classical dropped to three per cent of recording sales.

As for actual banding life throughout this period, the British Brass Band Federation was finally pronounced a dead ex-duck and buried without a further quack, while Brass Bands England very, very quietly was born and was christened by whoever were its parents with a very, very awkward name and with what looked like a dead narrow-bore euphonium as its logo. Band programmes for the public gradually cut out almost all music composed specifically for brass bands, music that is now increasingly squeezed into festivals and special events for the faithful. Bands continued to recruit more and more women players, which causes me some amusement when I remember the fuss made by other ‘top bands’ when I introduced Carole Crompton as first baritone in Desford Band, in the ‘80s. How the foundations shook for all of five minutes! I just wanted the best player and Carole was it.

So what do I think of British banding after these years of absence? In general, I think it is fantastic. It’s still thrilling. Banding is an activity that renews itself naturally: people belong to it because they want to, not because they have to or feel they should. It is vibrant because it has such a high value for so many people. Banding is about players and playing an instrument, from the bottom to the top. Everything else fits around that. So all perfect? Not quite. I’ll mention a couple of things later.

On the supporting side, a very large number of people still continue to give enormous amounts of selfless service to banding’s day-to-day needs. On the performing front, standards continue to rise and, in particular Welsh banding continues its significant ascent. I love the realism in banding: if you perform well, you move up. If you perform poorly, then you move on or down. How refreshing. I have yet to hear any PC nonsense in banding that such and such band should be allowed to win occasionally because it has not ever won anything. Not at all like the UK’s current life, controlled by dictatorial public ‘servants’ with their quangos and quotas, targets and guidelines, their sermons about what to eat and drink, and how to behave, with bullying clichés about diversity and multiculturalism. Banding seems to me to be open to everyone: it has so many lessons to teach the world, lessons that have been forgotten or corrupted by know-all social engineers. Now we have an increasing number of women conductors. Good. There’s been no rioting in the streets.