Popular Bands

Small Beginnings of Popular Bands

THE band of the Fiji Infantry Regiment and the Regimental!

Depot Band (the latter filled theE bill when the FIR Band went toe Malaya with the Ist Battalion) orig inated in World War I as the band! of the Fiji Defence Force.

To-day, when the bandsmen’s scarlet tunics and white sulus are an integral part of almost every spectacular occasion in Fiji, it is amusing to recall that 40 years ago there were doubts about whether Fijian soldiers could cope with brass-band instruments. Although there had been a band at the time of Cession in 1874, the doubts per sisted until the diminutive figure of Arthur Levy arrived at Suva from Ba and energetically pushed the idea.

The military heads were sympa thetic but doubtful, and the then Governor was likewise sympa thetic, but firmly knocked back any idea of financial help out of the public purse, Arthur Levy, disappointed but un daunted, set himself to collect a fund. The firm of Brown and Joske (now W. R. Carpenter and Co. (Fiji) Limited) promptly came to light with £2OO and a promise of more if it were needed. Smaller sums came in, and the band project was effectu ally launched. The Cession period band instruments were resurrected and were made more or less play able for the time being.

At that time there were 21 platoons, totalling 150 men, training for home defence. They were hand picked Fijians, and Levy managed to get 30 of them for his band.

He was gazetted as Bandmaster with the rank of sergeant, being promoted later to 2/lieut.

The new band found its feet in an astonishingly short time, and on the first Sunday on which it played the troops to church almost the whole of Suva turned out to cheer.

But perhaps Levy’s crowning effort (the writer was there) came when, after a deceased sergeant-major had been given a military funeral, he marched his band back to head quarters to the irreverent strains of If You Want to Find the Sergeant- Major, We Know Where He Is.—

Birk.