Down under, up and over: the Victoria Police World’s win 20 years later

Meeting the drumming challenge

While the Victoria Police today are by most-remembered first for their piping, winning Grade 1 at the World’s is exceedingly unlikely without finishing in the top-six in drumming. One lower placing from a drumming judge can scuttle all hope. A balance across both sections has to be achieved in order to win. Scotland and Northern Ireland are perennial hotbeds of pipe band drumming, but the percussion element can suffer in relatively piping-rich countries like Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The Victoria Police drum section was run by Lead-Drummer Harold Gillespie who, like Russell, was a native of Northern Ireland. His task was not necessarily to win The Sash, but to maintain a top-six level drum corps, to give the band a shot at winning the whole thing.

“Achieving a top-six placing is necessary for a good band result, however this was not the primary focus,” Gillespie says. “I continually adjusted the technical standard, tuning, volume balance and musical presentation of the drum corps aimed at improved ensemble effect, while adding as much as possible to the pipe corps melody, rather than going all out for a drum corps result.”

Gillespie’s corps had finished fourth at the 1997 World’s – a determining factor in the band not winning. He remembers being “ridiculed” for the fourth on the BBC Scotland radio broadcast. Rather than getting angry, he was motivated by the criticism. It paid off.

“It has always been my intention throughout my career that the drumline is to enhance the melody and therefore the performance of the band as a whole,” Gillespie says. “Finishing with second place in both elements meant equal first overall, and that definitely was a most satisfying achievement.”

As with the pipers, the 13-member drum section sought an edge through innovations. “Attention to snare drum sound was extremely important, with every drum dismantled, measured for true sizing and rebuilt,” Gillespie remembers. “Handmade gold-plated snares were fitted to the drums, thereby providing a great snare action, with a bright and clear sound quality and improved ability to vary the volume without loss of tonal effect. All basic section drums were also rebuilt, tuned individually to provide a pitched note for each instrument again for mood setting in relation to the overall presentation.”

Never return

Remarkably, the Victoria Police are the only Grade 1 band not to defend their title. The decade of hugely expensive annual trips to Scotland were subsidized by the Victoria Police Force. Memories of why the band didn’t or couldn’t go back to the World’s in 1999 vary.

“Lots of stories have evolved about why we didn’t go back so maybe this is the time to put it straight,” Niven says. “[The Victoria Police Force] explained to us that a number of members of the public had complained to them that the money to send the band to Scotland was wasting police money. Nat and the band had in fact raised the money ourselves and not one cent of the Victorian Police budget was spent getting the band to the World’s. We even had to take our holidays to play at the World’s, so it wasn’t even on work time. It was the perception that we were using State funding that actually stopped the band from going, so it was a very sad time for the band. Even after many meetings with Police Command, we couldn’t get them to let us attend. There was even a time when we were all going to take our holidays and go under a completely new name – sort of ‘The Band Formerly Called Prince’ sort of thing! It was a great shame as it would have been great to go back and defend our title, which I think we probably could have done, but we were never afforded the chance to do that.”