Our History

The Band was formed in 1950 by Cliff Williams who was a local cubmaster. Cliff brought together 6 scouts, 3 playing bugles and 3 on side drums. The Kingston District Scout Band was seen at its first public event in April 1951 at Kingstons St Georges Day Parade.

Geoff Mynott joined the Band as a scout at its formation and went on to become its Bandmaster for over 30 years. He retired from this post in December 1995 and became Honorary Life President. Sadly Geoff was unable to attend the bands 50th Birthday Concert, held in Kingstons prestigious council chambers, and passed away in June 2000.

The Bands current Bandmaster is Alison Eggitt and Karl Nicholas is the assistant Bandmaster. Along with their team of instructors both have been able to continue developing the Band from where Geoff left off.

In the 50's the band uniform was the famous Baden Powell hat, khaki shirt and shorts (knobbly knees!), blue socks, garters and group scarves.

In the 60's the Band grew in size and was playing regularly at local fetes and Scout events. The uniform changed, the hats were replaced by berets. Shirts and socks changed to white and the first band scarf - green with white lanyard - was introduced.

It was not until the mid 60's that the Band started to enter competitions (now a familiar part of their programme) which included the first National Scout Band Festival-held at Nuneaton. The Band was placed second to last in the novice class !!.

For the next two years the band worked hard on a new display and was rewarded at the 2nd Scout band festival held on Brighton with 1st place in the Novice class. The taste for competition had started!

In 1967 the Band changed its name to the "Kingston & Malden District Scout Band" following the incorporation of Malden & Coombe District within Kingston.

The 70's saw real progress being made in terms of music, membership and instrumentation.

Bugles were replaced by Trumpets and upright Bell Lyres were introduced. This allowed the Bands repertoire to increase and become generally more entertaining. A full range of valved brass instrumentation improved this further.

More prestigious events were coming up. Band members were invited to participate in the Lord Mayor's Parade as part of a Greater London South West County Scout Band. In order to prepare for this our first training camp was organised during the winter at Walton Firs Scout campsite. This is now an annual feature of the Band's activities, now held at Scout HQ - Gilwell Park, in order to prepare the display for the coming year.

The uniform changed to green shirt, long trousers, white belt and gloves and a band scarf - red with a white border. Cubs were allowed to join the Band as learners, normally starting on cymbals.

During the 80's Guides and Brownies became eligible to join the Band and the name was changed to "Kingston & Malden Scout & Guide Band" to reflect this. The Band grew and developed and was awarded an "A Grade" by the Scout Association. This is the highest grading a Scout Band can achieve, and the Band still holds this today. This made it possible to be invited to more prestigious events.

We were honoured to take part in the Queen's 60th Birthday Parade down the Mall in April 86 and subsequently appeared on Thames Television. This was followed by appearances at the Royal Tournament in 86 and two more Lord Mayor's Parades in 1986 & 1987.

At the end of the 80's the Band started to take the competition circuit more seriously entering a number of BYBA contests as well as non affiliated contests, including the Royal Albert Hall competition. There were continued appearances at the bi-annual Nation Scout Band Festival; in 1988 the Band won the Championship class & in 1992,1994 the Contest class.

The Band's musical style continued to develop to suit these more important events while still maintaining entertainment as the central aim. The repertoire included tunes such as "Uptown Girl", "Popcorn", "March of the Siamese Children", "He ain't heavy" & "Imperial March"(from Star Wars),"The great escape", "For your eyes only"(from James Bond),"The Hustle", Petula Clark's "Downtown", the classical "Karelia suite", Barry Manilow's "I write the songs" & Frank Sinatra's "Fly me to the Moon".

The 80's/90's have seen further Band uniform changes. All members of the Scout movement wear beige Venture Scout shirts; Guides wear blue blouses. Headgear was also dispensed with.

At the start of the 90's, with greater emphasis on BYBA competitions and the relaxation of Scout Association rules on band uniforms, the Band introduced a new style competition uniform which is still used today. The competition uniform comprises red Australian style hat, white shirt, red cravat and cummerbund, khaki trousers or skirt and black shoes. This gives an identifiable coordinated image to the whole Band. At all competitions the Band changes back into their Scout & Guide uniforms for the final awards muster, to show audiences that they are proud to be Scouts & Guides.

A much greater variety of instruments was introduced including Quad drums, Clarinets, Mellophones, Saxophones and Xylophones, in fact it is the Band policy to try and accomodate any instrument that a band member may wish to try. Bell lyres went horizontal and prove popular with the girls. The introduction of "Pit percussion" now allows the newest recruits to take part in competitions.

Now with a much higher profile in the local community the Band is regularly asked to perform at the Malden Fortnight, Kingston May Merrie and at the Kingston Christmas festivities.

More popular musical numbers have been added to the current repertoire such as "Black Adder", "Hungarian Rhapsody", "Gimme some lovin", "Largo" from Dvorak's New World Symphony - the Hovis advert, "Greased lightning" and many more.

We hope you have enjoyed this brief excursion through our long history and we hope to meet you someday - somewhere in the world of Banding.