Royal Marine L.I. cadets
 

I recently acquired several pairs of these with a job lot of items including bits and pieces of band accroutements.

Although it obviously does 'what it says on the tin', my question is; ANY info, date etc welcome, please.

T.

Hi,
A bit on the band from the "The News" a Portsmouth paper. If you search the site a few more bits come up.

Regards

Danny

Published on Monday 27 February 2006 13:33

For more than a quarter of a century he has watched proudly as youngsters marched and played with Gosport's Royal Marines cadet band.

But today is a sad day for Reg Coates as he prepares to wind down the band and auction off the musical instruments he spent years helping his members play.


Mr Coates founded the Royal Marines Light Infantry Cadet Marching Band in 1979 and inspired hundreds of young people.


But interest has waned in recent years, and problems with finding a venue in which to practise proved to be the final nail in the coffin.


The band was unable to find another base after deciding to move from its headquarters at Priddy's Hard. The building is in an isolated location with no transport links, but is also worth millions to Gosport council as a prime site for future development.


Mr Coates, 80, said: 'We have tried to entice the kids but they don't want to come to this particular place.


'We were using the rooms for instructors and eight children and it wasn't fair to the ratepayers in Gosport. When you are talking about a complete military band you are talking about a lot of space.'


The band's equipment – including instruments and uniforms – will be sold off next Sunday.


The auction will take place at the Shed Building, off the Explosion! Museum car park, Priddy's Hard, from 10am.


The money raised will be donated to charity

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/loc...band_1_1222554

I used to be in contact with Reg (as mentioned above), a very nice chap & it was a very sad day for him when the band ceased to exist. Interestingly, many of the tunics the kids wore in the band were original RMLI tunics!
Andy

It's a small world,

The chair I'm sitting on came from Reg Coates' auction house in the seventies.

Reg (now deceased) was a well known and popular character in my home town and they even named the road where his auction house used to stand after him.

I understand that during the war he served as a Motorcycle dispatch rider.

Regards to all.

Ry

Hi Ry,
It is a small world indeed! Very sad to hear he has passed on but obviously explains why I hadn't heard from him for a while, time passes too quickly these days.
Regards...Andy

Thanks for the info so far chaps.

I have had time to sort through it all now, and was surprised to find 2 1/2 pairs of these;

T

Having recently put a set of these up for sale, I was contacted by a former member of the band. I post below 2 of the E-Mails received from him, hopefully some here will find what he says of interest.

[1]
Hi you almost got where there badges came off of , the RMLICMB sew on badges were on the new intake uniforms a light blue shirt and a dark blue jumper and the 2 green sew on badges were on the red jumpers when you passed out when joining the band, you can use the pictures if you like, but none of these were on the tunics, I know because I was in the band and my Grandad started it all the best J.

My Response;
Thanks, I was pretty close then.
I have heard a lot about the band, sounds a real shame that it folded when it did. I bought these badges in a job lot some years ago along with the Bass drummers drape.
There are a couple of the green variation with 'Drill Squad' wording, are they from the same source?
Regards

[2]
Hi yes you were very close ,it was a shame when the cadets disbanded as we did so much in the years that we were together, we played infront of Royalty at the Royal Tournament in Earl's Court in London,,headed the procession in Jersey for there annual Battle of the Flowers celebration, we even went to Germany and America and France and played numerous different band jobs for many dignitaries, plus we played on many United States Aircraft Carriers I remember going on board the USS JOHN F KENNEDY very well and I still have the plaques given to us from the captain and we had one given to us from the US Marines that were also onboard so we were very busy but Horseguards Parade was my favourite band job ,my uncle has been left with most of the memorabilia as my Grandad passed away a few years ago now ,as for the variation in the green patches these probably came in after I left to allow cadets who didn't want to play an instrument give them the chance to be part of just a drill squad instead that's something that I will have to look into as we generally had a drill squad anyway but that was the cadets who were training thankyou for your interest in the cadet band all the best J.

A bit of a read, but full of info.
Toby