From occupation to Oxford

Philip Hind talkls to a Dutch-born cornet player about Oxford Silver Band and life under the Nazis

Park, if you’re lucky, in Temple Cowley on a Monday night in autumn and you will see an eager procession making its way toward the smart band hall that lies opposite the sadly decaying Temple Cowley pool. Enthusiastic musicians, young and old (they range from five to 85) and of all abilities: from absolute beginners to seasoned performers, meet for their weekly rehearsal.

Much as shoppers bemoan the baffling appearance of crackers in October and chocolate eggs in February, damp haired swimmers and library visitors alike might be forgiven for feeling that the seasons come earlier each year as the band is drilled in sombre marches for Remembrance Day and familiar carols for Christmas.

Players have been doing much the same right here in Temple Cowley for generations. What is now the City of Oxford Silver Band can trace its history back over 125 years, but it was not always called that.

A band’s conductor should always have impeccable timing, and so it was in 1952 when Cyril ‘Nobby’ Challis, wily leader of the then Headington Silver Band, sensed an opportunity to raise the band’s profile by changing its name to the City of Oxford Silver Band.

Whether it was the anticipation of a bright new Elizabethan era; to benefit from association with the wider city’s name or just good old-fashioned inspiration, the change undoubtedly marked a revival in the band’s fortunes.

International tours, competition success and the nurturing of a thriving youth band followed. And, in 1959, the tortuous search for a permanent home came to a happy conclusion with the construction of the present hall.

By the time the new hall opened, Frank Wolff had already been an active member of the band for five years. But Frank’s musical journey began not in Oxford, but Holland.

He was born in 1929 into a musical family, his five sisters all played piano as did their mother, his brother played the accordion: “My father was a driver, a private chauffeur. He was never out of work, and he was a good repairer of push bikes. He did repairs in exchange for piano lessons for the girls… but I never got lessons!

“When I was just 11 my mother said ‘go along to the Salvation Army party, there will be chocolate and cake’, so I did. When I was there the leader said, anyone who is 12 and can come back next week and if you have learnt a scale of C you can have an instrument to play.

“So I lied about my age and learnt the fingering and have played the cornet ever since.”

A seemingly harmonious life was threatened when, in May 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland. The country was occupied after a brief but intense struggle that saw Rotterdam practically obliterated.

Despite upheaval in the country, from the 11-year-old child’s perspective things did not seem drastically altered: “We never really took that much notice of it as children, we still played on the street, there were no cars, it was all very quiet, like it was here 50 years ago!

“In fact we were not done badly by the German soldiers but we were cautious. We didn’t want to rub them up the wrong way, though we had our little sayings and our little songs about them!”

Gradually however the impact of the occupation began to be felt. Frank’s father was forced to go to Germany to drive for a coal merchant and food became increasingly scarce.

“We had to be in before the curfew, and mother said to always cross the road away from the soldiers.

“Eventually the Germans took over our school and used it as a headquarters so we only had school once a week.

“I would jump on my bike to go to farms and get extra food. It’s a funny little thing but the one good thing the Germans did, for us at least, was to abolish the tax they had put on pushbikes. It was only a couple of guilders but it meant you could use that for food.

“For the last year or so my father was away all the time, we met occasionally at the border. But he was not allowed to come home until the war was over.”

It is an uncomfortable truth that many Dutch did not appreciate, or believe, the truth about the deportation of Jews from Holland, but of 140,000 living in Holland in 1940, as few as 30,000 survived the war. Many were helped by friends and neighbours despite the risks.

“My mum was hiding Jews, three times she did that, and she was nearly caught. When I was about 13, I was told to go to a nearby house to get blankets for these people hiding at our house, I was seen and followed and then they came to the house to ask questions and to try to get in, but my mother wouldn’t let them in.

“The next day the people were taken away. It turned out that where I got the blankets from, one son was in the Underground, but the other was an officer in the SS!”

Amid the contradictions, confusions and occasional dangers Frank continued to play: first with the Salvation Army Citadel Band, later a harmony band and, then after the war — while doing military service — an army band.

In 1954, he married Janny and at the wedding announced their intention to move to England, possibly as a prelude to finally settling in Canada or New Zealand.

Packing themselves and a few belongings into a grey, split screen Morris Minor — coincidentally heading back to its birthplace — they travelled to Oxford.

Frank found work as a toolmaker in Littlemore and later Kennington, but before long he was heavily involved with the revitalised and recently renamed City of Oxford Silver Band.

On October 13, the Oxfordshire & District Brass Band Association presented Frank with an award acknowledging ‘his longstanding commitment to brass bands in Oxfordshire’.

His 60 years as a member of the City of Oxford Silver Band will be celebrated with a charity concert on New Year’s Day from 7.30pm at Cowley Conservative Club, to which all are invited.

The reflected sparkles from his cornet compete with the twinkle in his eye as he reminisces on a happy family life in Oxford — he and Janny had two daughters, both accomplished musicians — and a lifetime dedicated to bringing music alive for both audiences and young performers.

In 1978, at the prompting of his daughters, he formed the Young Ambassadors Brass Band of Great Britain, which in 35 years has taken some 1,600 young people on musical adventures around the world.

“Every band is a new one, never the same players. We give them the chance to go abroad almost for peanuts. It’s fantastic!” he said.

Frank’s wife Janny died suddenly in 1996, but their home in Kennington where Frank still lives, is packed with memories, being filled with photographs, awards, instruments — including an impressive piano — and all the accumulated paraphernalia of a life crammed with activity.

Clearly he’s at home.

“Kennington is a very nice village, it’s really good and the people are very very nice when you speak to them, and I am an alien.” he said.