World record marked with fanfare

Then a line of 91 troops at the home of the Queen’s elite Household Guards raised their trumpets to their mouths, and began to play, their gold-plated instruments glinting against the brilliant blue sky.

Yesterday’s successful world-record breaking attempt for the longest ever line-up of fanfare trumpeters in the run up to the Jubilee celebrations, carried all the pomp and splendour one would expect.

But none of it would have been made possible without a North Yorkshire ex-farmer, blow torch in hand, hard at work in his cowshed.

The fanfare trumpets have been developed by Dr Richard Smith at his workshop near Sheriff Hutton, near York, who was specially commissioned to create the instruments for the Jubilee celebrations.

His instruments will also be used to signal the opening of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant when the Queen will take to the Royal barge along with 1,000 other boats. And they will also herald the opening of the London Olympic Games.

Speaking yesterday, after the 91 members of seven military units joined together to smash the record, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Jalland, Garrison Commander at Wellington Barracks, hailed the sound as something he would never forget.

“It was fantastic,” he said, “the sort of thing you experience once in a lifetime.

“I will probably never see that again or anything like it.

“I hope everybody else who was involved in it enjoyed the music as much as I did.

“It was not a straightforward thing to do.

“At this time of year, with all the public duties going on, everybody is very busy.

“These people have given up a lot of their time to make that fantastic sound.”

Dr Smith has been designing instruments for 40 years and started making Smith Watkins instruments in 1985 alongside his partner Derek Watkins, who is internationally recognised as one of the best all-round trumpet players and has played for Johnny Dankworth, Maynard Ferguson, Benny Goodman, Ted Heath and Frank Sinatra.

Since 2005, the company has been contractors to the Ministry of Defence and designed, made and supplied specialist brass instruments to most of the British military bands.

“It was very impressive,” Dr Smith told the Yorkshire Post following the event.

“It was very special to hear so many of them at once, usually they are only played in groups of seven or 14.

“It was quite thrilling really and was the peak of my career.

“Something like that has not happened before and probably will not happen again.

“Maybe they heard it over at the palace.”

Each trumpet played yesterday costs between £3,000 and £5,000 and takes on average six months to make.

They are specially designed fanfare trumpets with valves, known as Coronation fanfare trumpets, and were first used at the coronation of George Vl in 1937, exactly 75 years ago this month.

The fanfare trumpets to be played in the Jubilee celebrations are slightly different and were developed by Dr Smith from a prototype based on the trumpet the Household Cavalry were already using, but easier to play.

They also have a better weight distribution – as fanfare trumpets are usually top-heavy from the richly-embossed banners attached while they are being played.

Each one is estimated to be worth around £2,000.

Louise Toms, Guinness World Record adjudicator, confirmed that the record has now been broken for the longest line of fanfare trumpeters playing at the same time.

“It was a beautiful day and there were 91 of them that took part in the record attempt,” she said.

“It was absolutely fantastic to see.”

Fashioning a Royal fanfare for the Jubilee and the Olympics in a cowshed. See the award-winning Yorkshire Post magazine on Saturday.