Memories 1949 NZ Cruise on Bellona

Posted by Albie Cross.
I have just watched a programme of Massed Bands courtesy of Ernest (blogmaster of the Gambia Society) and it bought back memories of the 1949 NZ cruise on the Bellona in which her last port of call at the end of March was New Plymouth. According to WIKI , New Plymouth was designated a city at that time and a celebratory march was organised for Devon Street and all were extended the freedom of the new city.
About 80 percent of the ships company mustered behind the Royal Marine band which in turn had in front of them the Sea Scouts, a Highland Pipe band , a contingent from the NZ Army, the City of New Plymouth band , representatives from the RNZAF and possibly anything else you could get a tune out of.
The march began with the leading band launching into a brisk rendition of Col. Bogey or something similar and the strains of the music filtered down to Old Jack who would have been at least 500 metres down wind. As the parade got into full swing it became apparent that the architectural/ acoustical designing of “Ye olde Plymouthian” edifices on each side of the street had not been taken into consideration when dealing with such factors as the speed of sound (1100 feet/sec) or harmonics as sparkers are aware of.
As the bass drum was pounding out one boomf for the left foot to hit the deck, old Jack 500 metres astern received the impulse in his hearing organs as his right foot hit the deck.
This upset the GI’s who were doing their nuts to get everyone into marching in time instead of waltzing matilda. To complicate matters even further, when it came time for a band change-over, the GI’s (ably lead by John Cole) were put to the task again .
Time came for the Royal Marine band to perform and the situation was even more embarrassing with what you could call ‘sharp relay bounce’ The bass drummer would send an impulse across to say the Town Hall only to have it bounce back to the Post Office etc. (multipath) or for the benefit of TAS ops “instantaneous echo “, this made the GI’s even more madder and the barns -dance continued.
Nev Roebuck would have enjoyed it…