All Change
at This England Magazine
This England
magazine was founded in 1968 by
Roy Faiers as a patriotic
independent quarterly based on
traditional Christian family
values. A sister magazine, Evergreen,
was launched in 1985 covering the
whole of the UK.
During the
late-1980s the company launched a
record label entitled Evergreen
Melodies, later renamed
Yesterday’s Music. Initially
it concentrated on popular music
of yesteryear, especially dance
bands but also famous singers and
artists. The recording engineer
was Eric Holmes, a walking
encyclopaedia on dance bands who
was joined in 1997 by Peter
Worsley, alias Edmund Whitehouse
and, later when Roy Faiers
retired, as Percy Bickerdyke the
Music Editor.
As time progressed
Peter introduced light music and
in 1999 was responsible for ET
being awarded the magazine’s
Silver Cross of St George. In
2009 he also featured ET in a new
Unsung Composers series but by
then he had already been
beavering away behind the scenes
for several years in respect of
ET receiving a well-deserved
national gong. Several well-known
musicians had secretly added
their names and letters of
support to the cause, including
Brian Kay, Philip Lane, Gavin
Sutherland, Kenneth Alwyn,
Richard Baker, John Wilson, David
Ades, Alan Bunting and Professor
Stephen Banfield but there seemed
to be little recognition by those
responsible for the awards.
However, one of the British Dance
Bands online music group, who had
inside knowledge of how the
awards were made, encouraged
Peter not to give up hope but to
keep the situation fluid by
gradually adding further letters
of support. After a decade,
though, just as Peter informed
Hilary that he felt there was
little point in proceeding any
further, ET was awarded the MBE
in the New Years Honours list for
2012. Great rejoicing all round
and both magazines featured the
good news in both text and
photos.
On the internal
music scene, the magazines had
steadily built up relationships
with the Light Music Society and
all its major supporters, also
many other famous names who
championed good music, including
Julian Lloyd-Webber. Meanwhile
the Unsung Composers series
featured splendid light music
figures such as Lord Berners,
Matthew Curtis, Ronald Corp, Sir
Granville Bantock, Philip Lane,
Montague Phillips, Peter Cork,
George Lloyd, Alfred Reynolds,
Arthur Butterworth, Anthony
Hedges, William Lloyd Webber and
Armstrong Gibbs. When Peter
proposed a CD of light music by
Charles Williams, on to the scene
arrived Ken Wilkins, whose
encyclopaedic knowledge and
collection of recorded light
music is as fine as anyone in the
land. With the additional
encouragement and assistance of
the late David Ades and Alan
Bunting, a large number of light
music CDs were quickly released,
many of which featured tunes
never heard on CD before, among
them one of Peter’s
favourites, Baby Jumbo,
a short piece used to play out The
Clitheroe Kid on radio.
Between them, Alan Bunting and
Ken Wilkins, particularly the
latter in recent years, made
available a treasure trove of
light music but just as plans
were already well advanced for
light music CDs well into 2019, a
bombshell exploded.
When Mr. Faiers
retired the company had been sold
to D.C. Thomson, the Scottish
publishing giant who publicly
acknowledged delight at their
acquisition. Sadly, things turned
sour after a relatively short
time when the whole customer
services department was made
redundant and their jobs
outsourced. This turned out to be
a colossal mistake, later
publicly acknowledged in a letter
to readers by Ellis Watson, now
the CEO at D.C. Thomson. The
editorial department was also
drastically reduced in size and
moved to smaller premises where
Peter and Eric continued to turn
out several CDs a year, their
final total being almost 300,
including a fine series on London
musicals, an all-instrumental
series of eight top dance bands,
and three radio and TV themed
signature tunes, as fine a
collection of tuneful music as
one could wish for.
After several
years of non-interference in the
magazine’s style and output,
however, late last year things
began to stir behind the scenes
in Scotland and although This
England celebrated its
Golden Anniversary this year it
was sadly and suddenly cut down
in its prime when the Cheltenham
office was abruptly closed down
in May and everyone made
redundant. As if this was not bad
enough the two Editors’
superb and accurate farewell
explanatory letters to loyal
subscribers of both This
England and Evergreen
were removed without warning, so
that readers are still unaware of
the impending change. The reason
subsequently given was that the
editorials would have damaged
future sales. No request was made
for the letters to be amended,
however, they were simply removed
without the editorial team being
contacted.
There were no
other magazines on the market
remotely like This England
and Evergreen and it
remains to be seen what their
future content will look like.
Sadly, the music content had
already begun to change with CDs
being bought in cheaply from
other sources, some of which know
little or nothing about light
music, indeed Peter had to
completely rewrite the inlay
cards for a 10 CD set featuring
light music radio and TV theme
tunes which was riddled with
mistakes.
Farewell to
Evergreen Melodies and
Yesterday’s Music but at
least the final CD was a
corker!
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