Our man with a cam Rob Coles tells me the booking office at Bath Spa station is open again. The area was shut down after a portion of ceiling above fell down. Can’t have been too serious but the threat to the long term future of the staffed ticket office most certainly is!
Meanwhile says Rob:
“After lunch l went on to Iford Manor for the last Sunday afternoon cloisters concert of the season. The concert marked the 400th anniversary of composer William Byrd’s death.
It featured ‘Musicke in the Ayre’, with Jane Hunt, Soprano, and Din Ghani on lute.
Then on to the 91st birthday of Brian Cox, a Bath jazz trumpet player I had known since I was a teenager.
Brian is still playing and his band, for the occasion, included Chris Pearce, another musician from early days, who had recently retired after a lifetime playing clarinet with many top bands.”
Rob’s image of Brian and Chris brought an instant reaction from an old friend of his – and someone who l know some people will remember from his days as a photograph[pher at the Bath Chronicle. That was before he moved on to the nationals!
Geoff Ellis writes:
“Good to see Rob’s pics today of Brian Cox at his 91st birthday! And Chris Pearce as well.
The Bath jazz scene in the 50s/60s was very active with local bands playing in pubs and halls almost every night of the week.
My archive pic shows Brian Cox and Chris Pearce together on the Riverside Band’s float in the Bath Carnival in 1959. The trombone player is Brian Jackson.
The memories of those jazz days are very powerful as one gets older and it is good to see Brian and Chris still playing together – 64 years on!
I devoted more than twenty pages to the Bath jazz scene in my book, https://bathtofleetstreet.com , all taken while I was a photographer at the Bath Chronicle.
