Page 14 - QARANC Vol 14 No 6 2013

12 QARANC THE GAZETTE
Grey and Scarlet
The Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps Quick March
A piece of music that everybody in the QARANC will have marched to at one time or another during the last sixty years is Grey and Scarlet. It is nearly always played at the conclusion of RHQ and AMS Mess dinner nights by the Army Medical Services Band. But what is the story behind this piece of music?
The idea of composing a special
tune for the QARANC march past
originated from Lt Gen Sir Neil
Cantlie, then Director-General AMS.
In June 1948, during a Drumhead
Service at the QA’s Depot and
Training Establishment at Anstie
Grange, Dorking, Surrey, he
suggested that the song and former RAMC Quick March Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still be adopted. Col Dyson, the Colonel Commandant of the QARANC Depot, informed Capt Lewis Brown, Director of Music (DOM) of the RAMC Staff Band, that Professor Anthony Lewis of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham University, had suggested the theme be taken from a chorus of the opera King Arthur by Purcell (AMS Magazine, January 1951). She got together with two other QA officers, a pianist and Capt Brown to play the intended tune. Later he was asked to incorporate the old Irish Air The Gentle Maiden into the march. He played this tune on the piano but found the signature and rhythm was not suitable. However whilst working on the band arrangement for the tune King Arthur his mind kept returning to The Gentle Maiden, and he found that he could incorporate the tune by making slight alterations. Capt Brown sang the new tune down the phone to Col Dyson the next morning and Grey and Scarlet, named after the colours of their uniforms, was conceived.
Capt Brown finished the musical score and the proposed new Regimental March was vetted by the DGAMS, the Matron-in-Chief and the DOM at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall. The Colonel-
in-Chief, Queen Mary, then gave her gracious approval for the adoption of Grey and Scarlet. It was addedtothelistofCorps and Regimental Marches authorised for use by the British Army, promulgated in September 1950 with Army Order 120/1950:
“Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps - Regimental March - A regimental quick march for the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, entitled “Grey and Scarlet”,
Capt L Brown 1952
Col Brown’s son and daughters with the new DOM and the author Maj Ian Peaple, William Brown, Frances Anderson, Sue Bowtell and LCpl Terry Hissey.
has been approved and copies can be obtained from the publishers, Messrs. Boosey and Hawkes, Ltd., 295, Regent Street, London, W.1.”
Grey and Scarlet was first performed in public, by the RAMC Staff Band at the opening of the QARANC Depot and Training Establishment at Ontario Barracks in Hindhead, Surrey on 13 September 1950. It was described thus:
“The brisk martial theme of Purcell’s “King Arthur” is followed by the quiet, peaceful note of the traditional air, “The Gentle Maiden.” The sharp contrasts of tune illustrate the dual role of the Q.A. within the Army structure, woven inextricably by history into the pattern of our life.”
The march was recorded by the AMS Volunteer Band in 2005 and subsequently released on their inaugural CD, Medics in Concert.
Lewis Brown MBE joined the RAMC in 1945, rebuilt the Band after the War and stayed until retirement in 1964 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. A gifted musician, many veterans have often spoken of his very high musical standards. Amongst the audience at the 2012 AMS Band Christmas concert given at St. Andrew’s Church Aldershot, were his
son and two daughters. A highlight of the evening for them was hearing their father’s march Grey and
Scarlet at the conclusion. Sue Bowtell (nee Brown) wrote afterwards: “Many thanks for the photograph, a fitting reminder of a memorable and enjoyable evening. I’m sure my father would have been proud to know that his standards are being carried on by such dedicated
musicians.”
LCpl T Hissey
AMS Band Archivist