The Colonel Bogey March [1 Attachment] - Enjoy!

[Colonel (Retd) Ronnie Burjor Mistry]

Thank you, Shirin! The "Colonel B" is indeed an excellent piece and does 'fire' one up on the parade ground, as it did me when I was at the NDA and the IMA, oh! sooooo many years ago! PS : have endorsed copy to J. Cama also.

 

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Dear All,

 

As per my knowledge - I was OiC "Military Band", as well as the "No : 1 Pipes and Drums", of the Corps of Signals, and constantly involved with both, at various stages/occasions, all thru my Service life - the tune evolved thus :

 

.........the good Lieutenant Ricketts (or, may be the good 'eccentric Colonel'), as given further down in blue, in this mail, and a colleague were at a duck-shoot before dawn, at blinds across a lake. Not very sure of the direction of approach, they had decided to give some soft whistle, to fore-warn.......the flight approached from the friend's side, and sure enough he gave a soft short whistle...........the good lieut, being musically inclined as he was, was struck...... picked up the rhythm and followed up, whistling back.........the other guy continued...........and so on, and so forth.......doubtless, the ducks, all of them, happily lived to see another day.....Amen! 

 

Tho I am not sure of the authenticity of my this story, as I, at this stage, am unable to re-collect from where I picked that up, and despite the extract from Wiki, given below for general info, I feel my tale rings more true than the golf-course version given later, below - instead of shouting 'Fore' to warn of an impending drive, he preferred to whistle a descending minor third - I find it difficult that the good 'eccentric Colonel', as given below, would have had the ability (lung-power) to whistle across the golf-course, as required for a 'Fore'......contd.......

 

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Wiki extract :

The sheet music was a million-seller, and the march was recorded many times. "Colonel Bogey" is the authorized march of The King's Own Calgary Regiment (RCAC) of the Canadian Forces. Many humorous or satirical verses have been sung to this tune; some of them vulgar. The English quickly established a simple insulting use for the tune, where the first two syllables were used for a variety of rude expressions, e.g. "Bollocks", then followed by "...and the same to you." and perhaps even more commonly "Bullshit, that's all the band can play, Bullshit, they play it night and day".^[4] The best known, which originated in England at the outset of World War II, goes by the title "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball".

Noël Coward quoted the "Bollocks—and the same to you" version in a song from his 1950 West End Musical, Ace of Hearts, "Three Juvenile Delinquents." A foul "raspberry tart" noise was substituted for "bollocks," and Coward paid royalties to the "Colonel Bogey March" music publisher for use of this melodic quotation.

 The English composer Malcolm Arnold added a counter-march, The River Kwai March for use in the 1957 dramatic film The Bridge on the River Kwai, which was set during World War II. Although the lyrics were not used in the film, British audiences of the time fully understood the subtextual humour of "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" being sung by prisoners of war. Because the tune is so identified with the film, many people now incorrectly refer to the "Colonel Bogey March" as "The River Kwai March". In fact, Arnold used this name for a completely different march that he wrote for the film. Because the film concerned prisoners of war being held under inhumane conditions by the Japanese, there was a minor diplomatic flap in May 1980 when the "Colonel Bogey March" was played during a visit to Canada by Japanese prime minister Masayoshi Ōhira.^[7]

 

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Contd from above :

 

..........At the NDA, as well as the IMA, we had another equally smashing tune titled "The Cariappa March", composed by one Naval Lieut - unfortunately, I can't recollect his name (age in action here again!) - of the School of Music, at Pachmari, MP.

 

The "Colonel B" was played at the commencement of a March Past, at both Academies. However, the Band broke into the "Cariappa M", after a 'Roll", the moment the Academy Cadet Captain, leading the parade, gave the salute (at the Saluting base).

 

Frankly, I found the "Cariappa M" much more 'firey' than the 'Colonel B'.  PS : I was just a cadet, 'em days.....alas!

 

I have, in one of my earlier mails, narrated my meetings, in 1965, with Maj Gen (Retd) E.A.R. Ardeshir, of the AMC, settled at Poona, who was a POW at the River KWAI, when I was undergoing my SODE Course at the CME, Kirkee - he narrated many incidents. Read on......

 

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When I played it, I was impelled to get up and start marching! There is a magical quality to this composition.

 

 

1. The Real Colonel Bogey

'Colonel Bogey' is arguably the most famous march ever written. It is certainly the most profitable. First published in 1914 - a portentious year for marches if ever there was one - it quickly made the best-seller sheet music lists. By the early Thirties it had sold well over a million copies, had been recorded innumerable times and had already begun clocking up useful performing rights from the BBC. Even better, in 1958 it was chosen as the theme tune for the splendid film The Bridge on the River Kwai - and the mind boggles over the financial implications of that.

It is of course a fine march whose opening has proved totally irresistible for the best part of a century. Its composer was Lieutenant F J Ricketts (1881-1945), a military bandmaster who was Director of Music for the Royal Marines at Plymouth. Because at that time Service personnel were not encouraged to have professional lives in the great big world outside, Ricketts published 'Colonel Bogey' and his other compositions under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford.

So much for the composer -- but who in fact was Colonel Bogey? The story goes that this was a nickname by which a certain fiery colonel was known just before the 1914 War when Ricketts was stationed at Fort George near Inverness in Scotland. One of the composer's recreations was playing golf and it was on the local course that he sometimes encountered the eccentric colonel. One of the latter's peculiarities was that instead of shouting 'Fore' to warn of an impending drive, he preferred to whistle a descending minor third. This little musical tag stayed and germinated in the mind of the receptive Ricketts -- and so the opening of a memorable march was born.

One wonders if the two men ever met again. If so, let us hope that the composer at least stood the Colonel a generous double at the Nineteenth Hole.

Copyright © Richard Graves, April 7th 1999

 

The "Colonel Bogey March" is a popular military marching tune that was written in 1914 by Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts, a British army bandmaster.  The appeal of this martial number is unparalleled in the annals of military history.  Please see for yourself.

Humility comes before honour

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Attachment(s) from j cama

1 of 1 File(s)

The Colonel Bogey March.mp3

 

 

"To fight the darkness do not draw your sword, light a candle"   -   Zarathustra

 

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