AN entire village in Northern Ireland is packing up and coming to Jersey this summer for Battle of Flowers week.
The Church Hill Silver Band, whose members range in age from ten to 70, have only previously played outside their village twice, and before last year some band members had never flown or been on a train.
Church Hill is based in a tiny hamlet near Derrygonnelly, a village in County Fermanagh. The band’s standard bearer, John Richardson, said that they rarely leave the village to play because of the hard work involved.
‘Just 50 people live in or around Church Hill and there are 52 people in the band, so the village literally empties whenever we go out,’ said Mr Richardson. ‘Until last year we had never performed outside our immediate boundaries – 30 miles beyond the village – because it meant that other people had to come in and do our jobs.
‘We have members who are lawyers, doctors and teachers, but Church Hill is basically a farming village. So when we come to Jersey our friends and relatives will all be coming in to help out on the farms and look after our animals.
‘We are very much a rural community. In our village we have a Methodist church, 17 houses, a bus stop, post office, telephone box and the band hall, so the band really are the nucleus of the village.’
The Church Hill Silver Band have been in existence since the 1800s and two of the founders were responsible for composing the American national anthem. Originally they were a flute band but they became a silver band in 1905.
According to Mr Richardson, they play ‘a wide and varied selection – everything from swing to standard military marches’.
As well as living in the same village, many members of the band are also related to each other and 22 even have the same surname – Ferguson.
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