The Water Rats Jazz Band
Annual Tour of the Norfolk Broads - 2008

In the last full week of July, while the rest of the world is going about its business, a sleepy part of the country is awakened by the sights and uplifting sounds of traditional jazz. A group of musicians get together from the south of the country and for one week only each year, jazz can be heard ‘down by the river-side’ as the ‘Rats Boat’ with many of the band on board, meanders along the Broads followed by a legion of fans and other musicians in a flotilla of boats, camper vans, cars and bicycles etc. This is no ordinary holiday as you have probably gathered and neither is it a one off, as this year was the 43rd year of the Water Rats Jazz Band Tour. With a delicious blend of sailing down the calm and picturesque waterways of the Broads and plenty of jazz to make you feel good even on those summer days that make you wonder if you’ll ever see the sun again, this is a holiday with a difference.

The week began this year with some Siberian type weather where many of the musicians’ hands were blue with cold – not that they let it stop them playing of course - but then the skies cleared and there followed a succession of hot, sultry days where the sessions were played outside pubs on or near to the water’s edge. (No self-respecting jazz musician is to be found too far from a bar and this event is no exception.)

This year, the Band was on the North Broads visiting such venues as the White Horse, Upton Dyke – known fondly as Winkle’s – where, arguably, you can get the best and biggest fish and chip supper anywhere, to a barbecue on the ‘beach’ at Salhouse Broad, and then to the relative formality of the Wroxham Hotel where the band played on the jetty to such a big and appreciative audience that some of the ‘flotilla fans’ had to bring their own chairs (and given the bar prices, some of their own beverages).

Each lunch time and evening the Band sailed to a new venue and were joined by local people and holiday makers who happened to stumble across them and this made for a good crowd of die hard jazzers and those who wouldn’t ordinarily listen to jazz but finding, much to their surprise, that they quite enjoyed this form of entertainment.

Of course, most of the jazz musicians now have bus passes (although it is heartening to see the occasional musician under 30) but their energy and drive to play jazz is undiminished (helped in part by the endless supply of Woodforde’s beer given to the intrepid musicians in lieu of payment.)

This is most definitely a great week’s holiday - an opportunity for old friends to get together and simply have a good time listening to or playing the type of jazz they love. No one knows how long the Water Rats’ week on the Broads will continue (although when it was suggested a few years ago that it was to stop there was an outcry in the East Anglia area with newspaper articles written, public protests made and it even made television news. Well who’d have thought it?)

But while it does continue the Rats will make the most of it..

Although the Rats are sponsored in beer by Woodforde’s brewery, no fees are paid at any of the gigs and income is generated in the form of raffles, collections, T-Shirt sales etc. It is the Band’s proud boast that not one penny collected will go to any form of charity whatsoever!

The line up (apologies for any omissions because there were a lot of you) can comprise at any one moment all or some of the following-:

Bass/sousaphone/tuba

Ted Barker,
Jerry Hoskins,
Jeff Sturrock

Drums/washboard/yodels
Jim Finch,
(Uncle) Barry Tyler,
‘Mr. Spoons’

Banjo/Guitar/Ukelele
Doogle Ferguson,
Bill (Binkie Pollock) Guyford,
Brian (Lewisham Lark) Lawrence,
Brian Masters,
Jeff (Django) Sturrock,
Roger Willan

Trumpet
Vic Bevan,
Simon Nelson,
Bill Jenkins,
Ken Shepherd,
Terry Starr

Trombone
Bob Alcoe,
Pete McCulloch,
Robbie Paige,
Bob Renvoice,
Ken Shepherd

Reeds
Dave Dearle,
Steve Howlett,
Paula Masters,
Tony Teale,
Karl Wirrmann