‘Bach to Broadway’ or ‘Puccini to Pop’ could have been the billing for the Weekend festival at Thomas Peacocke Community College. Thanks to meticulous planning by Chairman and moving spirit, Richard Moore, and his team and the expert performers, near-capacity audiences enjoyed three days of programmes designed for majority appeal, mainly familiar but with the odd less well known melody here and there and a sprinkling of light-weight classics.

Friday evening opened with the entry of Battle Town Band, resplendent in green and gold, to the tune of Colonel Bogey. Under their dynamic conductor, Peter Mitchell, the band encountered The Cornish Cavalier hinting at the Floral Dance, revived the Twenties with the Mack and Mabel Overture with Keith Wilkinson’s bass trombone solo in the poignant I Won't Send Roses, and gave Jon Smith a chance to shine on euphonium in variations on My Old Kentucky Home. Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue gave a similar spot to flugelhorn player Russell Kemp, joined by Jo Pelling on cornet for Light As Air, a version of the Bach Air on the G String. (Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale).

Wurlitzer wizard and next year’s President Len Rawle opened with Blaze Away, then a selection from South Pacific, followed appropriately by Gershwin’s S'Wonderful, and a Latin-American fantasy including Brazil and cha cha cha rhythms. These contrasted with an unusual and recent discovery in pp mood Meditation by the Brazilian composer Carlos Jobim.  In the second half Shelley Clark on Bb cornet gave us a delightful piece Dark-haired Marie with the band joining with the organ for a Wagnerian finale.

Saturday morning saw enthusiasts participating avidly in Len Rawle’s all too short Master Class. Then followed a silent movie presentation of a Harold Lloyd short, a Laurel and Hardy epic and a riotous saga of the Model T Ford (Tin Lizzies) car chase, 'Lizzies of the Field' with Len improvising background music and explaining its function of enhancing the atmosphere.

The afternoon Tea Dance, with Len again officiating, gave thirty couples the chance to show their expertise in ballroom and sequence dancing.

On Saturday evening the Kent Police Male Voice Choir resplendent in blue tuxedos with their enthusiastic conductor David Vening proclaimed that they were Little Lost Lambs who have Lost Their Way (we didn’t believe them – they weren’t Yale University Wiffenpoofs) – but insisted they were Going to Build a Mountain (Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse.)

The high spot of the weekend was undoubtedly the fifth return visit of the BBC’s star of The Organist Entertains, Nigel Ogden, who charmed and thrilled the audience with topicality for Cup Final Day of the Match of the Day theme, and marches Sons of the Brave and Great Little Army. A showtime selection included numbers from Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hammerstein ranging from Fings Ain’t What They Used to Be via Strike Up the Band and March of the Siamese Children from The King and I to the ever-popular That’s Entertainment, ending on one of Eric Coates’s lesser-known works, Dance in the Twilight. The choir joined Nigel in the Welsh hymn Praise the Lord His Glory Show for a stirring finish to the first half.

The choir opened after the interval with the a cappella Ride the Chariot, the comedy numbers The Animals are Coming and the Hippopotamus Song. Nigel played two popular short pieces Melody on the Move and Leroy Anderson’s Belle of the Ball, leading to a selection of standards and light classics including Schubert’s Marche Militaire and a Tchaikovsky waltz. The choir again joined in Sullivan’s The Lost Chord and Broadway melodies before a treatment of Abide with Me and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Sunday’s Songs of Praise with the Regency Singers, twenty-four assorted voices under the direction of Reg Hipperson and conducted by Lois Benton with a mix of traditional and lesser known works culminated in a buffet luncheon giving everyone the chance to ‘network’.

The afternoon was richness indeed with no less than five organists playing their favourites, Michael Maine organist /choirmaster of Hove Parish Church delighted with the tango Jealousy, Borodin‘s This is My Beloved from Kismet, and Judy Garland’s wistful The Boy Next Door. Youthful Richard Hills, shortly heading for the organ loft of Westminster Abbey selected Latin-American including the whirling Mexican Hat Dance, glamorously-gowned Janet Dowsett on her own Yamaha with a selection from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, and a novelty piece Magic Fingers and John Mann whose local fame needs no introduction ranged from Sussex By the Sea to the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria.

After the interval, Michael Maine gave us One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly, and demonstrated his tenor expertise in the vocal of The Nearness of You. John Mann’s El Relicario preceded an Al Jolson selection, Richard Hills gave a similar treatment to Jerome Kern numbers and Janet Dowsett opted for standards in praise of men.

The presentation of an engraved clock to John Mann for his sterling work for the Wurlitzer Friends over the years led to Len Rawle joining the other four performers to combine with the audience in Land of Hope and Glory to send everyone home on a true ‘high’ in anticipation of the next Wurlitzer Weekend in January 2004.