Death of EYMS Ambassador Announced

Barry Mathews, who had a lifelong passion for brass bands in the north Lincolnshire area and beyond, and latterly was an ‘ambassador’ for the East Yorkshire Motor Services Band, has died aged 83. He passed away after a short illness at Scunthorpe General Hospital on November 11.

Barry, a talented tenor horn player, musical educator and later conductor, was always upbeat, and had the rare gift of being willing to help, with a smile, anyone who approached him. He was born in Cleethorpes on Christmas Day and given his full name of Noel Barry Mathews by his mum because of the special day.

Taught to play whilst a member of the Salvation Army, where he met his future wife Margaret, he later helped to set up the Harold Street Boys Band, which evolved into the Grimsby Band, and was its solo horn player for many years. As a young Salvationist, he worked his way through the junior and senior corps and later enlisted as a bandsman in the Royal Corps of Transport Staff Band and was often part of the Forces radio broadcasts.

Margaret often took the early ‘milk train’ from Cleethorpes to London to meet Barry. It was during that time that he met the respected conductor and composer Dennis Wilby, and the pair remained lifelong friends.

Later he decided to devote himself to the Grimsby Band and helped many youngsters blow their first notes on a brass instrument. He also played with Lincoln Hospitals, Market Rasen and Cleethorpes bands, and was proud to help the EYMS Band on several occasions. Barry later became musical director at Cleethorpes and Market Rasen and his enthusiasm for the movement took him all over the country to attend concerts by the top brass.

He was a regular at the Granada Band of the Year competitions at Warrington, and later the Brass in Concert contest at Spennymoor, where he was a familiar sight in the front rows with his big box full of sandwiches and set for the day. Barry, who ran his own electrical business until his retirement in 1998, was a keen scooter rider in his younger days and could often be seen riding around the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area with Margaret as pillion passenger.

They had two boys, John and Andrew, who grew up in New Waltham, and the family moved out to Holton-le-Clay before returning to Barnet Drive, New Waltham, to be near his eldest son John. John and Andrew followed in their father’s footsteps and both became electricians, and John learned to play, becoming a fine Eb bass, and also baritone player, with Grimsby and then the EYMS Band, then based in Hull.

When Barry, after undergoing a heart valve replacement operation, gave up playing and conducting, he pushed all his enthusiasm into photography, and his images over many years chronicled the progress of the EYMS Band at both concerts and contests, and he was a great friend of the band with his shiny personality. Always with a smile, a twinkle in his eye and bags of charm, he would often greet one and all with a ‘hello lover’ and be soon in enthusiastic conversation about bands and life in general.

EYMS Band chairman, Tony Newiss described Barry as “a true ‘Force of Nature’ who will be sadly missed by all who knew him”. The funeral will be at Grimsby Crematorium on Wednesday, November 23