A Happy Interlude in Winchester – Part 2

Almost immediately after the Town of Winchester’s bicentennial celebration in 1971, something else began stirring. The Music Man at the Gilbert School, Ed Keeley, met me in the mayor's office one afternoon. He started talking about a proposed exchange concert with the Mid Hants band in Winchester, England. He explained several of his thoughts on the subject and it was plain that he had done a lot of the groundwork. We would take the 100-piece Gilbert School Band to Winchester, England. I didn't really think he was asking me when he said should we go. I told him "Yes."

Immediately the same sort of fervor took hold. The objective was to raise the thousands of dollars necessary to fly the band to England. Two stalwarts were Jack and Laverne Walter. Posters, flyers, newspaper articles, and blue decals for cars touting the proposed trip appeared everywhere. Periodic funding reports were all very positive. The trip was scheduled for the April vacation.

One thing that had to be done immediately was the securing of a gift of friendship from Winchester, Connecticut to Winchester, England. Frances Felton, a premier pewter smith, lived in our town. I visited her workshop and explained to her about a gift I wanted to bring with me for presentation to Winchester, England. As we talked, she showed me some of the projects she had completed and others still in progress. She told me she would think about the gift and get back to me in a few days. There was no doubt in my mind that we would be proud of whatever project she decided on.

As mayor, my wife and I were asked to chaperone–and that was another fortunate event for us, as our son played the French horn and our daughter played the flute. Ed and Lorraine Keeley, Will and Patti Minton, and three teachers, Dorothy Barton, Joan McGowan and Craig Schroeder, also chaperoned. Will Minton was the Choral Director at the school.

I checked in with Ms. Felton and she decided and I agreed that she would fashion a stemmed pewter candy dish with a cover and suitable inscription. The dish and cover would be about seven inches in diameter and eight inches tall of hand-fashioned pewter. Set in the bottom of the bowl would be the obverse side of our silver Bicentennial Coin and the reverse of the coin would be set in the handle on the cover. It was a simple but elegant gift that I packed in my luggage to deliver to the Town of Winchester in England.

On departure day we gathered in the Band Room at the Gilbert School. The luggage, the instruments, uniforms and music were stowed on the two buses that were to take us to Bradley Field. Our entourage arrived at the departure gate at the airport, and amid many tears we were loaded on the plane. Those waiting said they heard a loud noise that gave some concern when we took off, which we didn't hear at all.

We landed at Heathrow, where two buses with placards indicating the "Gilbert School Band from Winsted, CT USA" picked us up. Our sightseeing tour of England began then and continued for the rest of our trip. We stopped first at Runnymede to stretch our legs and visit the JFK Memorial and the monument commemorating the signing of the Magna Carta. We stopped for lunch at a tea room in Windsor, and then visited Windsor Castle and observed from the walls of the castle the playing fields of Eton.

When we arrived in Winchester our first sight was a statue of King Alfred in front of the Guild Hall. The host families picked up their charges here. Our headquarters was to be the King Alfred's Boys Club. Each of the band members would be living with a host family. Mrs. Riiska and I would be the houseguests of the Steeles.

Our first concert was that afternoon in Abbey Garden at the rear of the Guild Hall. We played with the Mid Hants Brass Band, which was the local youth concert band and our host. We were later bused to the nearby IBM recreation center so we could see and hear ourselves on the BBC.

The band practiced at the Montgomery of Alamein High School. We had lunch there one day and the band played a concert there one evening. We were the guests of the Rotary Club of Portsmouth for lunch, at which the band members dutifully toasted the Queen. I sat at the head table and chatted with Lord March of Goodwood. He had a Formula 1 track on his estate, but he seemed to be land poor and we discussed skiing on grass as an income supplement.

We visited St. Charles' Church, which was bombed out during the war; the shell is maintained there as a memorial. Portsmouth is the city from which I departed England for the Continent in June of 1944. We boarded and inspected the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship, and saw the spot where he lay wounded.

Our next stop was to visit the motor museum of Lord Montague of Beaulieu. It was one of the foremost automotive museums and is said to contain an example of every motorcar ever produced. Each vehicle was in running order.

Of course we visited Winchester Cathedral. There is a very proper hotel nearby where the adults had a very nice lunch looking across the grounds to the magnificent cathedral. The cathedral dates from 1090. One of the stories is that the cathedral was collapsing. It was built on beechwood logs and as the groundwater table dried up from too much construction, the logs rotted and began to disintegrate and one corner of the cathedral began to sink. In that corner of the cathedral is a statue of a man in a diver's suit, William Walker, the man who saved the cathedral. He carried enough cement by hand as he lowered himself in his diving suit through the mud to shore up the sinking corner.

We visited Salisbury Cathedral, which has the tallest spire in Europe. Many dignitaries are interred in the cathedrals; their sarcophagi are carved to indicate the horribleness of death. Also, as a result of Oliver Cromwell, many of the statues are without heads.

We were able to stretch our legs when we visited Stonehenge. In 1972 there were not many restrictions on where you could walk. Joan McGowan, one of our chaperones, was able to tell the students about the importance of Stonehenge and nearby Sarum.

We presented our gift to Winchester to the current mayor, the right honorable Elizabeth Cleary, for Mayor Steele's term had expired. The Town Clerk, a most important official, showed us the treasures that had been accumulated by the Town of Winchester over the centuries as gifts from other equally important communities.

One of the obligations that my wife and I had was to be honored guests when the local civic opera group presented Gilbert and Sullivan's Salad Days. For the occasion I had to bring formal wear and my wife had to bring a gown. We were introduced from the mayor's box to an audience that cheered wildly.

The band had in its repertoire a stirring rendition of Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever," which they played in the concert at the Montgomery of Alamein High School. The next performance was to be a concert in Winchester Cathedral. The young people deleted the "Stars and Stripes" from the program because they felt that it would be inappropriate for a concert in the cathedral.

The night for the concert arrived. Heat in the cathedral is not turned on until Easter, and it was a bit cold. The Gilbert School Band was seated on the dais and the Mid Hants Band with them. A large audience was assembling. Everyone in town knew we were there. The conductors gave the bands the downbeat and the concert began. The young musicians in both bands were excellent. The concert continued and then the Gilbert School Band struck up "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Their host families had insisted that it be part of the program.

I don't know when I had ever become so emotionally overwrought as when I heard the first notes of that so familiar march. The kids had brought with them flags that they waved as they played that supremely patriotic march on the dais of a Norman cathedral that was constructed in the eleventh century. As I watched and listened the tears were streaming down my face.

After the concert the Steeles invited the chaperones and friends to a cocktail party at their home. It was a delightful affair, but the next day our buses were to bring us to London. The host families delivered their charges to the parking area at the train station where our buses were waiting. It was another session for sad and sincere good-byes.

In London we visited Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park. We stayed at the King James Hotel and attended a performance of Porgy and Bess. When the kids were safely seated in the theater my wife and I sneaked out and caught a cab and asked the driver to deliver us to the Queen's Elm, a pub located at the corner of Fulham Road and Church Street in Chelsea that was owned by my first cousin, Sean Treacy. It was the first time we had ever met.

Next morning was the trip to Heathrow and our flight to Boston, and then on to Bradley and onto our buses for the ride home to Winsted. It was a truly memorable trip.