Our lecturer, Dr Graham Jones, former Senior Director of Music for the Household Division (overseeing State Ceremonial Music) and Director of Music for the Coldstream Guards, gave us an entertaining and light-hearted lecture on the wonderful music played by the military ceremonial bands during the Christmas period.  We learnt about the bands who play during the changing of the Guards at Buckingham Place and how at Christmas time their duties are lighter.  They like to play Christmas Carols, including those they can march to as they head back to their billets and we saw video clips of their playing and marching with such professionalism and precision.

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The military bands are also involved throughout the community and throughout the country, at concerts for charities, at Chelsea Hospital and the Guards Chapel, at Christmas time.  We saw clips of concerts by the Military Wives Choir and a flash mob event by the Royal Marines band at a Portsmouth shopping mall, surprising the Christmas shoppers.

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We saw images of how Christmas is spent by those in the forces who are deployed throughout the world, the Royal Navy in Antarctica and Christmas lunch in the cookhouse served by the officers.  At the Royal Hospital Chelsea, there are a number of Christmas traditions for the pensioners that have kept going for centuries: the stirring of the pudding; the ceremony of cheeses (since the 17th century) and the cake ceremony since 1949.

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The musicians who play in the military bands are highly talented and skilled, having achieved Grade 8 or Diploma Level in music in order to qualify. They are also trained service men and women and can be deployed at any time if required.

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We are thankful to all those men and women in the services who are on operations at Christmas time and they will be in our thoughts on Christmas Day wherever they are in the world.

Vicki Cowan