Graham Bandy

Graham Bandy has spent his life either in the Army or in Nursing, or latterly doing both at the same time!

Starting off as a military musician in 2nd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment, he went on to train as a Registered Nurse, and as such commissioned as a Nursing Officer in QARANC in 1999.

Before he took his early retirement, he had found himself being asked more often to identify photographs, do research, and appear on television doing family military genealogy. Graham has been an onscreen presenter for Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA), and started appearing at WDYTYA Live, Family Tree Live and at various family history fairs around the country, where he has become a valued asset for knocking down genealogical military brick walls.

Graham has always collected militaria since he first started pestering his Old Contemptible Great Uncles for First World War memorabilia, and has amassed a large Northamptonshire Regiment, Army Medical and photograph archive collection since then.

He now writes monthly for Family Tree Magazine, lectures for the Society of Genealogists, and is now on his fourth book, and first with Barnthorn.

He lives with his wife in East Sussex, where they are slowly drowning in books, Warhammer, books,  trains, more books, old uniforms, badges, books, and other antique military stuff!

The Regimental Marches of the British Army

The Hows, Whys and Whats of British Regimental Marching Music.

A huge number of you, I suspect, had relatives in the army who would have heard the bands playing. An amount of you would also have musicians in your family who would have played in these bands, and made the music for not only the troops, but also as entertainments for civilians, royalty, distinguished guests, and even moonlighting in the great orchestras, dance bands, and theatrical bands of their era.

There is many a famous musician who started life in an army band.

Why bands though? Why music for the troops? And what did they play?

This book will answer your questions and show you the origins of the Regimental Marches that they played; their backgrounds and the original tunes upon which they were based.

Some of these tunes have origins back to the 17th Century and beyond, some were especially written, and one was actually written by Queen Victoria’s mother! Some went by other names. I explored these with a number of surprising results.