A CONCERT of brass music and poetry was enjoyed by an appreciative audience at St Peter’s Church, Newnham.

Forest of Dean Brass, led by Conductor Martyn Patterson, played a wide-ranging musical feast from arrangements of popular pieces such as I Will Survive to traditional works such as Forest of Dean March.

The highlight was a performance of Ivory Ghosts written by Forest-born international composer Gavin Higgins. 

To complement the music, members of the band read poems by F.W. Harvey organised to match the music.

The highlight of the evening was the poem A River, Pig and Brains a humorous account of how a pig was persuaded to sit in a boat and cross the river at Newnham in the days when it hosted a Ferry and Harvey worked in a solicitor’s office in  the village.

Trudy Hannaford and Marion Dobbs used the local dialect to perform the poem Elvers, another  Harvey favourite about baby eels.

Generous donations at the door were shared between the church and the fund to restore and refinish the Onward Hall, Yorkley.

Forest of Dean Brass will next be performing at the Bugle Band Contest, Cornwall on June 17.