Unite the Union Brass Band has been through several name changes since its inception in 1900.

You may recognise some of them:

• Sheffield Recreation Band (from 1900)
• City of Sheffield Band (from 1970’s & again in 1984)
• Quaker Sutherland Band (from 1970’s)
• Andrews Heat for Hire Band (from 1980)
• Stocksbridge Engineering Steels Band (from 1988)
• UES Stocksbridge Band (from 1992)
• Asda Stocksbridge Band (from 2000)
• Stocksbridge Brass Band (from 2002)

Over a Century of Music

According to the surviving documentation, laying out the band rules and constitution, the band was formally founded on the 4th of May, 1900 by William Thomas Bestwick, a Sheffield Police Inspector. As bandmaster and leader he set about raising funds for instruments and uniforms and his stated intention was that the new band should “give pleasure to all who would listen, whilst playing for their own pleasure and recreation.” Thus the new band was given the name of  Sheffield  Recreation Brass Band.

Unfortunately very little is known of the band’s history during this period but the band contested with some success (at one point adding the words “Prize Band” to its title as was the custom of the time) and was in regular demand at local fetes, galas and garden parties. The two world wars obviously took their toll on players but the band struggled on, reforming again in peacetime.

During the long history of the band there have been many stalwarts who contributed much to keep the band going. One such man was George Webster who joined the band in 1920, aged 15. Over the years he held the position of bandmaster, treasurer and librarian. In later years he was elected band president – a position he held until his death in 1985.

When the band began contesting again after the Second World War they were graded in the third section. They competed at the Spring Belle Vue contest in 1948 when the conductor was George Webster but things were at a low ebb by the mid 1950s, partly due to the toll taken by National Service on players. Things improved with the arrival of a new conductor named Jack Carr, a cornet player and instrument repairer who brought with him a number of experienced players from the recently defunct Sheffield Transport Band. Under his direction they began to steadily improve and became one of the most successful and consistent bands in the Sheffield area. At that time the band rehearsed the upstairs room in the Hallamshire Hotel pub on West Street in the centre of Sheffield.

It was in the early Sixties that the band first began to make its mark on the wider band scene. The band was fortunate in having a young soprano player by the name of Derek Ashmore who was also a talented arranger. Derek had joined the band in 1948 and it was his arrangement of Mussorgsky’s A Night on the Bare Mountain which gave the band an impressive thirteen first prizes in own-choice contests under the leadership of Jack Carr during the 1960’s. After Jack’s death in 1968, Derek took over as conductor holding the position until 1971. He went on to become a successful arranger and publisher forming his own company, Hallamshire Music.

In 1969 the band persuaded the Sheffield Parks Department to refurbish the Weston Park bandstand in the centre of Sheffield which had been closed for 25 years. The re-opening concert was a great success and band concerts on Sundays continued for a number of years. The Band also played at the opening and inaugural production of the Crucible Theatre entitled "Fanfare"on 9th November 1971 accompanying actor Douglas Campbell and in demand local folk singer Dorothy Vernon.

In the early seventies the band took the decision to change its name to  City of Sheffield Band. This was because the local council had created a new department called the Sheffield Recreation Department and many people assumed the band was in some way linked to the local council. Contest-wise the band had some success at this time in the WD & HO Wills national finals at the Royal Albert Hall. Local music teachers Murray Slater and Stan Roocroft followed Derek Ashmore as conductors during this period which also saw the band secure sponsorship from a local food manufacturer to become the  Quaker Sutherland Band.

The band’s fortunes improved further with the arrival of conductor David Hirst, then the young soprano player with the Black Dyke Mills Band. Under his direction the band achieved victories in a number of local contests including wins at Sheffield, Holme Valley and the Radio Sheffield ‘Bold as Brass’ competition, an entertainment contest featuring dozens of local bands in the Sheffield and Barnsley area.

The band has rehearsed in a number of less than ideal bandrooms over the years. After the room in the Hallamshire Hotel pub became unavailable in the late seventies they moved to the staff canteen of the Quaker Sutherland factory at Darnall where the tannoy, providing music for the evening shift, played constantly in the background during rehearsals.

In 1979, Derek Ashmore returned and under his direction the band qualified for the first time for the Second Section national finals in London. A new conductor Graham O’Connor arrived in January 1980 and led the band to an impressive number of victories in that year including the Yorkshire Area Second section, the Grand Shield and the Pontins Championship. During the same year the band gained a new sponsor and new name, Andrews Heat for Hire Band. The band moved its base to the firm’s premises at Wincobank and until a purpose-built bandroom was erected the band rehearsed in the vast warehouse surrounded by roaring industrial heaters to keep warm.

The highlight of that year was the appearance at the British Open Championships at Belle Vue, Manchester. The band qualified with an historic win in the Grand Shield playing Thomas Keighley’s The Crusaders, an old-fashioned but tuneful piece dating from 1925 which suited the band’s soloists and musicality perfectly. The test piece at Belle Vue that September was as different as could be, Robert Simpson’s Energy, a complex, almost mechanical work that required a great deal of hard work to bring off. In the event the band achieved 11th place out of 24 bands, a creditable achievement in that company for what was still a second section band. However, this status was about to change because the following year the band was promoted to the Championship Section for the first time in its history.

A number of conductors came and went during the 1980s all helping to gradually improve the standard, Dennis Wilby, Derek Ashmore and David Hirst again, and Dennis Carr. It was Dennis who led the band to a second win in the Grand Shield in 1984 playing Le Roi d’Ys. Also in that year the band reverted to a former name as sponsorship ceased and the band became the  City of Sheffield Band  again supported financially by Sheffield City Council. The council also provided rehearsal facilities in the former Carbrook School in Attercliffe, the bandroom was a lofty classroom on an upper floor of the otherwise deserted Victorian school, egg boxes had to be attached to the walls to try and deaden the ringing acoustic.

City of Sheffield Band went through several more conductors in Roy Roe, Steven Sykes and Derek Renshaw and still steadily continued its improvement, but then yet again, in 1988 the name was changed, this time acquiring the name under which it would make its biggest impact and reputation –  Stocksbridge Engineering Steels. The new sponsor was a massive steelworks in Stocksbridge, a town ten miles to the north of Sheffield (the original Stocksbridge Works Band attached to the firm had folded in the early eighties).

New rehearsal facilities were provided in the firm’s training centre in Stocksbridge, new instruments and uniforms followed. The band was now up-and-coming and ambitious but needed a top conductor with a proven track record to compete against the best. Ray Farr, formerly of Grimethorpe and Yorkshire Imperial Metals was engaged and he took the standard of playing to new levels using his expertise to win a number of entertainment contests. The band was again invited to Sheffield's German twin town Maiabendfest (May eve) and Bock Beer celebrations involving several appearances around the city culminating in a grand finale concert in the Ruhrlandhalle in Bochum, plus the compulsory tasting of Bock beer!

He was followed in 1989 by Hugh Megarrell. If Ray Farr taught the band to play like a top band then Hugh Megarrell taught them to think like one. It was under his leadership that the band had the most successful period in its history, qualifying twice for the London finals by coming third in the Yorkshire Area in 1990 and second in 1991 with a magnificent performance of Journey into Freedom. Also that year the band qualified yet again for the British Open with a third place in the Grand Shield.

For the next few years it established itself in all the major contests, the British Open, the English Masters and Spennymoor Entertainments, achieving some good results although never quite managing to break into the frame, the number of seventh places became increasingly frustrating. The band also made a number of fine recordings during this period as well as broadcasting on Radio 2’s Listen to the Band.

In 1992 the band was invited to take part in the Lords Mayors Parade in London. As it was rare to invite a brass band (the organisers usually only invited military bands) the rules stipulated that all bands should consist of 40 players so extra players had to be recruited for the occasion. New high collar uniforms with hats were ordered and even a Territorial Army drill sergeant was recruited to put the band through its paces. In the event, in competition with professional military bands, Stocksbridge Band received a certificate of commendation for its marching and presentation and also an invitation to take part again the following year.

More conductors followed throughout the nineties: Chris Houlding, John Anderson, Kevin Bolton, Graham O’Connor and there were trips to Germany and Holland. Major recordings and concerts also followed with such internationally renowned soloists as Evelyn Glennie, Philip McCann and Derek Southcott. During this period due to company restructuring the name was altered to  UES Stocksbridge.

In 1995 by an ironic quirk of fate the band found itself relegated to the First Section. Ironic because the band had possibly the finest line up it had ever had, including a team of soloists – Richard Marshall, Billy Rushworth and Pete Roberts that most bands would kill for. But a string of low placings in the Yorkshire Area made this inevitable. This had little impact however as the band was still competing in all the major contests in the calendar and bounced straight back up for the following year.

Also in that year the band made history by becoming the first brass band to successfully apply for a National Lottery grant to buy new instruments followed by an appearance on live TV on the National Lottery show. However the highlight of the year was an exhausting but highly successful 21 day tour of Australia giving 12 concerts coast to coast. The trip was made at the suggestion of former Bb bass player Andy Lincoln who had made a previous tour with the CWS Glasgow Band. The sponsorship and massive organisation of the tour was handled by the man who was at the time the band’s flugel player and band manager John Lee.

At the end of that eventful year the band was approached by a film company to take part in a film being made in Sheffield about the plight of redundant former steelworkers. A ‘steelworks’ brass band was featured in many of the scenes. There was little indication in the long hours spent waiting around on those less than glamorous film locations what a major success The Full Monty would be or that in the long term the surrounding publicity would ultimately be the saviour of the band.

Unfortunately it was shortly after this extremely busy year that the band began to decline. There were a number of reasons for this: the pressures and commitment of competing and running a band at the highest level, changing working patterns and poaching from other bands, but in short, too many players left in too short a period, morale was low and the band was unable to recover. An announcement from the steelworks that due to a change in ownership they would no longer be sponsoring the band was simply the final nail in the coffin. Early in 1997, down to around half a dozen players, Stocksbridge effectively folded. Three or four players clung on however with the intention of one day resurrecting the band.

That could easily have been the end of the story as few bands ever recover from such a bleak position, but in September of that year, two of these players, Alan Brentnall and Trevor Goodison gathered together some former members to discuss what should be done. After all, there was still an excellent bandroom in the Stocksbridge Victory Club, an extensive library and a nearly new set of instruments and three sets of uniforms (stage, marching and walking out) which shouldn’t all go to waste. A number of resolutions were made at that time: no-one wanted an immediate return to the pressures of contesting at the top level of banding with its ruthless hiring and firing and intensive rehearsal schedule, no players would be paid so no-one would join solely for financial incentive. It should also be friendly and fun hopefully combining the standards of a Championship Section band with the family feeling of the lower sections. The intention was to return to the spirit of that initial declaration by Inspector Bestwick that the band should “give pleasure to all who would listen whilst playing for their own pleasure and recreation.”

In the absence of a sponsor it was decided to keep the name of  Stocksbridge  as this would continue the ties with the local community plus it was the one that at least had some reputation, few people would have now heard of Sheffield Recreation and another band had hi-jacked the title City of Sheffield. Derek Renshaw the former principal cornet player and conductor agreed to take the baton. Derek had family connections with the band going back to the 1960s, his late father Lew had been the band secretary for over thirty years. The first rehearsal of the new band consisted of thirteen players and there was an open door policy inviting anyone to come for a blow.

Gradually over the next few months the bandroom began to fill up again. The band still needed financial security however and an appeal was put out to local businesses for a sponsor. The nationwide publicity generated came about as a result of the band’s participation in the box office busting movie The Full Monty. A centre page spread in The Big Issue and feature articles appearing in all of the tabloids and even in the News of the World followed local radio interviews! The press angle was inevitably to draw comparisons between the plight of the characters in the film and the poor former steelworks band in crisis. This publicity brought an invitation to take part in The London Parade Festival concerts held in December in The Wembley Conference Centre as special guests and coupled with it a 'live' broadcast and interview from the studios of Radio 5 Live. As a direct result of this early morning broadcast an offer of sponsorship came from ASDA after it was heard by their then Chairman Sir Archie Norman. Incidentally, one of the local ASDA stores in Sheffield had been one of the locations used in the film.

The band went from strength to strength during 1998, attracting players from far and wide, no stars, no prima donnas, just a solid base of former members and some keen, committed new bandsmen and women all proud to play for Stocksbridge. February brought more filming this time in the bandroom for part of a Channel 5 television programme. April 1998 saw the band return to Bochum, Germany following a personal invitation from the Oberbugermeister's (Lord Mayor's) office. This was a great boost to the reforming bands' morale, building the team spirit! After such a lay-off however it was a long hard slog to try and regain the standards it had once had but slowly standards improved.

Then in January 1999 it was decided to test the band by entering a contest. This was a major step and there was some trepidation as the new band was untried and had not competed in over two years. In the event, playing Connotations, the band won first prize at the Rochdale Contest. Not a major title, no giants were slain, but the victory did wonders for morale and confidence and for the first in a long while Stocksbridge could call itself a band again. At one time many players thought they would never see the day when the band would compete again let alone win a contest. Some setbacks followed, relegation from the Championship section was inevitable as the band had missed competing for a year but on 12th March 2000 the newly re-named  ASDA Stocksbridge Band regained something of its old form, winning the First Section of the Yorkshire region, conducted by Derek Renshaw thus qualifying for the finals at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time in nine years.

In November 2000 the band celebrated its centenary. Around 150 former players and conductors were traced and invited to a reunion concert to celebrate a hundred years of banding (under whatever name it might have had at the time) at the Stocksbridge Victory Club. A programme of music was carefully chosen to represent the various periods in the band’s history and included Journey into Freedom and A Night on the Bare Mountain, heard for the first time in many years by about a dozen members of the 1960s era Sheffield Recreation band. This was an occasion to meet old friends, re-tell old stories and to look back on an eventful century of banding. More importantly it was a chance to celebrate not only the musicianship and friendship of all those bandsmen but also the perseverance and tenacity of those who had ensured the band’s success and survival.

In the early part of 2001 the band launched a season of Sunday evening band concerts at the Victory Club under the title of ‘Stocksbridge Band Club.’ The intention was to base the concerts on the informal lines of other band clubs such as Dobcross and Glossop and a number of lower section bands in the area were invited to take part. These evenings proved to be highly popular, not only with local bandsmen and women but also the local community. Funding the venture itself, the band intends to continue this annual event.

Stocksbridge began its second century in winning form taking the Yorkshire Area First Section title for the second year running. A busy concert schedule followed including a highly memorable joint concert with the Lake Wobegon Band from Minnesota, USA playing to a packed audience in the Victory Club.

But the crowning success was victory in the National Championships First Section contest at the Preston Guild Hall on the 23rd October, the first time the band had ever won a national title. In November the band were invited to a reception given in their honour by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield where each member was presented with a certificate and a trophy to commemorate this fine achievement.

2002 saw the band consolidating its position in the Championship Section with a busy concert calendar and some successful contest results. There were a number of changes of personnel, some players opting to change instruments to accommodate the new arrivals. In December 2002 the sponsorship deal with ASDA came to an end and the band began the search for a replacement. Any worries that this might have become a period of unrest were quickly dispelled at the area contest.

The Yorkshire Area in 2003 proved to be another landmark in the band’s history, a first-rate performance of the controversial test piece Prague earned the band second place and qualification to the National finals. To qualify for London in such company was a remarkable achievement and tribute to the band’s policy of achieving success on its own terms by supporting and developing its own ‘home-grown’ players. The achievement was doubly satisfying for conductor Derek Renshaw as the 2nd prize trophy was engraved with his father’s name. Lew Renshaw was the former band secretary and after this death ten years previously, the band presented this trophy to the Yorkshire Area committee to be awarded in his memory.

The summer of 2003 was spent fund-raising for the trip to the National finals. A series of concerts were held in the Victory Club and a team of local supporters also rallied round to contribute to the total. The test piece for the finals was Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a piece that was far more musically demanding than the usual run-of-the-mill test pieces. The band played well and was placed 13th out of 20 performers, perhaps not a result to cheer over but not one to be ashamed of either. It was disappointing not to be placed higher but this was still the band’s second best ever result in the National Finals.

After this high point the following couple of years were a pretty lean and unsettled period for the band. William Rushworth took over as conductor to be followed later by Stan Lippeat. With the closure of the Victory Club for renovation in early 2006 the band lost not only its home but a lucrative source of income from the concerts it promoted there. Times were so hard that the band was reduced to rehearsing once a week. It was during this period that the band appointed a new Musical Director, David Nesbitt, a professional tuba player with great experience of the brass band and orchestral worlds. Under his leadership the band began to rebuild and faced 2007 with a new optimism. This was rewarded in March with victory at the Yorkshire Area First Section and two months later with first prize in the Senior Trophy competition in Blackpool. The band rejoined the Championship Section in 2008 but unfortunately suffered immediate relegation back to the 1st section in 2009.

2008 brought another new Musical Director in Miles Davison who had played with the band in the early 90s on solo horn. Miles led the band to 5th place at both Butlins and the Yorkshire Area. In 2009 he was superseded by another previous player, David Holling.

During this time and due to a lack of suitable rehearsal rooms in Stocksbridge the band decided to leave the area and relocate back to Sheffield. The sponsorship links to Stocksbridge had long ago disappeared and with the breaking of the geographical links the band took the decision to revert to a former name once again in City of Sheffield Band.

In 2010, after an unsettled 4 years in temporary band rooms the band finally found a permanent home in a modern, spacious room above Harrison’s Bar on Regent Terrace in the heart of Sheffield. Now the suitcases and boxes could at last be unpacked and the pictures and souvenirs hung on the wall. This was in effect a return to its roots as the new rehearsal room was only a short distance from the band’s original home, the Hallamshire Hotel. The establishment of a permanent home brought to an end a difficult and unsettled few years that had begun with the closure of the Victory Club. The return of a number of former players as well as some new blood gave the band a welcomed chance to reflect and rebuild.

In 2011 former player and conductor Derek Renshaw returned bringing a new sense of purpose and professionalism. With a settled and experienced team the trophy cabinet soon began to fill up again after some fine results in the contest field.

November 2011 brought yet another change of name. Strong links had been establish with the union Unite through the band’s involvement with the Durham Miner’s Gala. The band had led the Unite contingent for the past 2 years which led to a formal sponsorship and the band became Unite the Union Brass Band.

Victory in the First Section at the Yorkshire Area in March 2012 brought qualification for the national finals and promotion back to the Championship section. The test piece Vivat by Tom Davoren suited the band’s strengths and the performance at the Cheltenham finals gained a standing ovation (including the composer himself) and the trophy and title National First Section Champions of Great Britain. It also earned a Best Instrumentalist prize for Solo Baritone player Steve Machin.

Although promotion presented new challenges further success followed at the Senior Cup in 2013, with qualification for the Grand Shield for the first time in 10 years.

Away from the contest field the band teamed up with Jarvis Cocker in June to provide a live soundtrack to the film The Big Melt, a documentary using archive footage of Sheffield steelmaking. The occasion was to celebrate 20 years of hosting Docfest in the city and the 100 year anniverary of the invention of stainless steel. The live soundtrack, performed at the Crucible theatre, was provided by Jarvis and other Sheffield musicians including Richard Hawley, members of Pulp, a string quartet and a youth choir.

2014 and a return to the helm again by David Hirst, the year turned out to be a consolidation year with some contest success but more a preparative period for the year to come. It proved so to be, winning the 1st section trophies at both Butlins and the Yorkshire Area Contest and securing promotion back to the Championship again. Entering both 1st section and (in preparation for the following year) the Championship section at Bolsover Festival of Brass (placed 1st in 1st section and 2nd in the Championship section), Wychavon Festival (second place and best soloist in the 1st section and 4th plus most entertaining band in the Championship section),

Shirebrook  Entertainment Contest (2nd place overall) and Morley March & Hymn Contest ( 2nd place) ensured the band had re-forged its reputation for entertaining an audience. June 2016 brought another change of conductor as David left to secure an administrative role with world famous Black Dyke Mills Band. Conductor in waiting, John Roberts readily accepted his appointment. The band however, had recently lost a few players including two of their solo players to other bands and a rebuild began in earnest.

Unite the Union Band were invited to perform alongside Dore Male Voice Choir with ‘self styled diva,’ Lesley Garrett CBE, the world famous soprano, Singer–songwriter, musician, broadcaster and media personality at The City Hall, Sheffield. Lesley, a ‘local lass’ from Doncaster, was the first national patron alongside Sir Cliff Richard OBE for the dementia charity “The Lost Chord” for whom the evening concert took place.

2016's BBC Music Day saw the Band taken once again to Sheffield's hearts in a performance with much-loved - and particularly unique- Sheffield band, The Everly Pregnant Brothers, a charismatic mix of ukuleles, string bass, drummer and front man, “a bunch of disparate chaps with three things in common, the love of beer, ukuleles and having a laugh.” They take well-known classic pop songs, “tamper” with the lyrics to produce musical art that celebrates Sheffield and takes a humorous squint at life. The band's composer and arranger in residence, Mike Kilmartin, created backing arrangements for the band, skilfully interweaving the brass band sounds with the Everly Pregnant Brothers’ driving Ukelele chords. The crowd adored the collaboration with the performance shared immediately on YouTube and ricocheting around Facebook and Twitter. Both Everly Pregnant Brothers and Unite the Union Brass Band were thrilled to have reached new audiences and exciting plans were initiated for further collaborations within Sheffield’s melting pot of music.

Again, Music in the Gardens was blessed with good weather, a very appreciative, now entourage audience swelled to even greater numbers. Contest successes soon came in 2017 with a runners-up position at the area and a place secured again at the National Finals of Great Britain in Cheltenham where the band were awarded a very creditable 5th place.

It turned out to be a busy year for the band sparked by the fact that it was incredibly, 20 years since the band appeared in the making of hit film‘The Full Monty,’ a movie that turned brass-banders into film stars and Sheffield wanted to acknowledge and celebrate it's success with special screenings of the film at cinemas across the city!

Live interviews and appearances on BBC Radio Sheffield, Look North and Sheffield Live TV followed and the band performed music from the movie prior to its showing at the cinemas, joined by stars from the film Paul Barber (Horse), William Snape (Nathan) and Hugo Speer (Lunchbox) to the surprising interest and excitement from capacity ‘young' audiences.

The band continued this theme into their programme at Bolsover Festival of Brass. Long negotiations with 20th Century Fox in London and Los Angeles ensued, incurring an astronomical phone bill but finally permission was granted to use a short clip from the film on the day. The audience obviously liked and appreciated the unusual approach and responded well to the background film and story portrayed which included both serious and comic ingredients, with narration throughout the set by Steve Huison (Lomper) and even a cameo appearance by Mr Duncan Beckley (wearing the same jumper he wore during filming 20 years ago….. we claim!) to rapturous applause and laughter. Such was the atmosphere created in the hall during a septet performance by the "Old Monteenys” (brought together again "for one day only"), led by flugel soloist John Lee, who played the solo part (whilst stood in a grave) for ‘Lomper’ who actually mimed in the film. It brought a small tear to many an eye and you could have certainly heard a pin drop!

The performance and idea also found favour with 1st section adjudicator Mr Thomas Wyss who had no doubt in awarded the band 1st place overall plus Most Entertaining Band trophies. Later, in the Championship section the band were placed 4th overall.

The year ended with the release of the band’s new CD entitled "20 years on" which featured music from the movie, in addition songs by Sheffield musicians Joe Cocker, Tony Christie and The Human League, joined by some original compositions from the Sheffield Branch of the Salvation Army and Sheffield’s own Sean Bean in his role as the swashbuckling Sharpe. The CD portrays the diversity of the Sheffield music scene across the ages, one this band is proud to be part of.