This set of blog posts tells you about some of the things we have learned, or done, as they happen. This helps you to keep up to date with the progress we are making. After all, we’re doing this not just for us, but for you.
Continuing our series of pieces expored with the help of Sibelius software during ‘lockdown’ we this time turn to a gem of a march by George Allan. This is the contest march “Belmont”. Our copy was donated to us by Kirkbymoorside Band’s Musical Director Sarah Woodward over a year ago, and when she told us…
It was almost a year ago that the Friends of the Wizard and the Typhoon started work on a project, called Project Homecoming, with the young people of Greenfield Academy school with support funding from Northern Heartlands, a Great Place Scheme. That project involved engaging experience arts facilitatators to help the young people explore the…
In my last blog post I explained how as the banding community is currently stood down whilst the virus pandemic has created mayhem I had looked to other ways to explore the sheet music in our collection and, on the advice of Mr Tim, our local music shop owner, turned to music software for help…
It’s hard to believe that the last time that we heard anything new in person from our collection of George Allan and Tom Bulch music was back in August 2018 when we had our first concert at Ushaw College. A second concert we had planned, in partnership, was to have happened in April this year…
As a researcher into Tom Bulch, I’ve been (very gratefully I might add) receiving some help from the Patron of our group, Tom’s grandson, Eric Tomkins. Eric has some very early first-hand memories of his grandfather and started looking into his grandfather’s story long before it came to the attention of this group, and as…
There can be no doubt that these are unprecedented times for us all, wherever we happen to be. The breakout of a global pandemic has wreaked havoc on our day to day lives and brought suffering and uncertainty to so many. As with many countries around the world, the British Government has ordered a lockdown…
For this post, we’re dipping back out of the past and into the present to give you an update on a partnership initiative the Friends of The Wizard and The Typhoon are involved in with Greenfield Community College, the school that now provides education for many of the young people here in Shildon as well…
What’s this? Two posts in one day you say. Just happens to be a rather bountiful day and this is another research discovery I couldn’t let go without documenting. As you’ll know if you have been following the Long Story, Thomas Bulch didn’t leave Shildon alone for Australia. He had three travelling companions with him,…
Most recently I’ve been writing up the story of Tom Bulch and George Allan during the Great War years and have finally reached the end of the war and the return of George Allan’s son Willoughby and Tom Bulch’s son Jack (his other son Thomas Edward Jnr was killed in 1916). I learned that Jack…
It’s been a good while since I posted an update so I thought it might be nice to do so just so that everyone knows this process hasn’t stalled and that we’re still working hard at assembling the lives of George Allan and Thomas Bulch. When I’ve had spare moments in the last three months…
