On Sunday 22nd April the band played on Jamaica Road in Bermondsey to accompany the athletes running the London Marathon and to entertain the many thousands of people cheering the runners on. This is the fifth appearance of the band at the marathon and is the third year we have performed at Jamaica Road. An early morning start saw the band arrive at their destination before 8:00am. The local sandwich shop must have thought that all his dreams had come true at the same time as a group of hungry bandsmen descended on his shop.
The band set up and were ready to play before the first runners and wheelchair athletes came through. We were situated at about the 11.5 mile mark and so the first runners (the elite wheelchair athletes and the elite women) came through soon after 9:30am. The band continued to play a variety of upbeat numbers to keep the spirits of the runners up. Particular favourites at the marathon include Ron Goodwin’s theme from “The Trap” which is used by the BBC to introduce their coverage of the marathon and “Out of the Blue” which is the theme tune used each Saturday at 5:00pm for Radio 5 Live’s “Sports Report”.
We continued to play until 1:00pm by which time most of the runners had passed by and the roads were being reopened having been cleared of the empty water bottles lying on the ground.
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