Starting Work

On the day I started work I left home at 7:30 in the morning and reported to the boss at Yeates Buses on Derby Road.  He got someone to take me up to the stores which were open so you could see through some netting and look out over the whole floor where the buses were being made.  I was introduced to the foreman of the coach trimming workshop and he then started teaching me to do cutting and then just more or less left me to it. Within a few days I had made friends with my fellow workers. There were 10 of us making the seats and I soon got talking to Bud Fisher who was also the leader of the town band. Bud taught at a room by the pub on the corner of Granby Street. He invited me to come and have a go at playing the cornet and soon invited me to join the band.  I did well with him and played with the band until I joined the army.

Starting work at Yeates Buses. From L - R: Herbert (lived in Fennel St.), Bud Fisher (the band master), Norman Main, Stanley, Harold, ? , Fred, Me and the foreman.

Addition from Ruth:

Sadly Bud Fisher died earlier this year aged 92.  He kept in touch with Dad all through his life and would often pop to see Dad at the shop over the years.  I managed to find this obituary online:

"4BR has been informed of the death of Charles Frederick (Bud) Fisher MBE.

He died peacefully, aged 92, in hospital surrounded by his family on Thursday morning, 15th March, 2012.

Great figure

One of the truly great figures of the brass band movement, his influence and teaching of young players was an inspiration to generations of players and music lovers.

Lesley Bentley, Secretary of the Leicestershire Brass Band Association told 4BR: "Bud Fisher was an inspiration to all bandsmen, players and conductors that knew him.

Serving with the Royal Leicester Regiment, he was a contemporary and friend of the late Major Peter Parkes and began conducting the Loughborough Band in 1950.

Buds work with young players is legendary, spending almost every spare hour in the Bandroom, teaching hundreds of players. He not only trained musicians, but through his caring, disciplined approach, trained them for life.

Amongst those who benefited from Buds work are Martin Winter, Bryan Allen, Murray Greig and Richard Bissell, who along with many others joined the professional ranks. Few Bands in Leicestershire or indeed the Midlands do not have a Bud Fisher trained player in their ranks.

Loughborough Band owed all to Buds Youth policy with the Youth Band winning the Midlands Youth Championships on 6 consecutive occasions, and the National title.

Loughborough Band came from the 4th Section, under Bud, to the Championship Section taking 7th place at the Royal Albert Hall playing Blitz, when the Band was virtually the same as that competing in the Youth Section.

Many Bands in this area now have Youth Bands, thanks to the example of this extraordinary man.

When awarded the M.B.E. in 1980 he was quoted as saying, 'we were lucky because of the tremendous amount of talent available to us over the years'.

What he failed to say was that it was he himself who trained all this talent!

A true gentleman, we shall not see his like again."

Found at: http://www.4barsrest.com/news/detail.asp?id=14903 [01/06/12]

© Ruth Coward 2012