Camborne Youth Return From Menin Gate Trip

Camborne Youth Band played to several thousand hushed onlookers at a moving ceremony at the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium on Sunday 26th August, putting Cornish music, Cornish youth and Cornish history firmly on the map.

The performance, part of the daily evening ceremony to honour the hundreds of thousands of men who died but have no known grave, brought a two-day trip to World War One battlefields to an emotional close.

A spokesperson for the band told A4B: “This was a very important occasion for the whole Band and a memorable and moving experience, It will live on with us for the rest of our lives. Over the weekend, the Band conducted itself with great dignity at all the ceremonies in which they took part – and they played superbly – especially at the Menin Gate.”

Star soloist for the Band was principal cornet Aaron Thomas aged 17, from Troon, who is studying his ‘A’ levels at Camborne School. His brother William, 15, also plays cornet in the Band. Aaron told A4B: “I’ve learnt the solos, so it is not the music that’s difficult to play – but playing it in such a moving and meaningful place, in a situation and circumstances like this, it’s a lot more emotional. It is really great to know the history of the War and to know that Cornish people came here, and then to take part in remembering them –so we can give something back.”

It was a particularly meaningful trip for the Band as they were taking a 100-year-old bugle back to the scenes of terrible carnage 100 years ago. On Saturday, Band members played the Last Post in the graveyard at Sailly-sur-la-Lys, northern France, where a Cornish policeman and keen rugby player, Thomas Penhorwood, is buried.

They also travelled to the nearby town of Estaires where a group of Cornish miners from Dolcoath were were stationed. In Estaires, the Band presented local officials with a rugby ball signed by current Devon and Cornwall teams.

This was to remember amazing events 100 years earlier when Cornishmen organised three games of rugby there between Devon and Cornwall men after Camborne Rugby Club sent out a ball. They wrote back to the West Briton to say that the last match was played on Whit Monday, and instead of the music of the Bands in Camborne – they played to the ‘music of the guns’.

On Saturday, a Band from Camborne was back in Estaires – and there was music by a Band from Camborne, not the music of the guns. The Band played the Last Post by the War Memorial and also a concert in the local park – for which they received a standing ovation.

The 100-year-old bugle belongs to the family of band member Corey Williams, the great great grandson of Fred Negus, one of the miners from Dolcoath who signed up with his friends in 1914, just after war broke out. They joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served on the Western Front throughout the war.

This was an occasion that the Band members will never forget.