Sadly Ridley Hall is being sold off to the highest bidder so this years rehearsal weekend was our last ever at this beautiful venue. The band have many happy memories of Ridley Hall weekends going back many years.

We had a great turnout and rehearsed music old and new in preparation for forthcoming events.

Here we see Matty our newest recruit trying out a Tuba for size!

The afternoon saw the traditional Mr Hignett team V Rest of the world football match with the inevitable victory in Mr Hignetts favour.

With ‘Cat Like Tread’ Mr H keeping goal and directing proceedings from the goalmouth

As usual there were a few misinterpretations of the rules of Association Football.

No one was seriously hurt, surprisingly!

The annual World Prudhoe Community Band Snooker championships went on till the small hours.

On paper the victory appeared to go to Chairman Dr Steve Quilliam and Joe but when the results were finally analysed in the cold light of day there appeared to be various rule discretions, use of ringers, hustlers, timing irregularities, Under 18s etc resulting in a moral victory for Dave and John crowned overall world PCB series winners.

The hardly souls who made it for the ‘Last Breakfast’

And finally, a bit of musical archeology.  On Sunday morning we were shown round the vaults of Ridley Hall where we came across a box of lost stands and various other lost items including these very early mark 1 Hignett batons, one of which has seen better days.

Times were hard in the early days of PCB and Mr Hignetii had to resort to making his own batons using cheap red wine corks and kebab sticks.

With the passage of time he can now afford to buy expensive batons, which he still breaks, and his cellar now includes some of the finest red wine money can buy.

Goodbye to Ridley Hall and thanks to all the staff who have always made us most welcome over the many years we have been going there.