Peter Parkes was born on 8 May 1928 in Northampton, left school aged 14 and was apprenticed to the Northampton Electric Light Company.

Music was a passion for him and he enjoyed learning the violin and later the clarinet. He enlisted into the Leicestershire Regiment on 20 September 1945 and a year later he attended the Pupils course at the Royal Military School of Music where he was graded ‘Good’ at the end of the course.

He subsequently attended the Student Bandmaster course in the Coronation (1953) Class and was placed third out of nine candidates. Awarded first prize for Military Band arranging and second in the March competitions, he also gained the Associate of the Royal College of Music and Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. His first posting was to the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry Band with which he toured Canada and once played to a reception for Harold Macmillan and President Eisenhower. With the numerous infantry amalgamations, he became BM of the Somerset and Cornwall LI in October 1959 at Osnabrück, West Germany.

A pre-requisite for a commission to Director of Music was the ‘passed school of music’ (psm) qualification which he achieved in 1960. The Royal Tank Regiment (Alamein) Band became his first commissioned posting in May 1962. From there he went to the Royal Engineers (Chatham) Band a couple of years later and his penultimate position as DOM Grenadier Guards in October 1970. He composed several marches for the Grenadiers, including The White Plume, which he wrote for Trooping the Colour.

Maj Parkes succeded Maj George Hurst as DOM RAMC on 1 October 1977 and, coming from the Guards, maintained the high standards he had already achieved.During his short time with the Corps he was involved in some high profile engagements including a radio broadcast on Charlie Chester’s Listen to the Band on 5 April 1978. That same month the Freedom of Rinteln, West Germany, was bestowed upon the local BMH and he conducted the Staff Band in the ceremony and marched through the town. A tradition for the RAMC DOM was to provide musical direction for the annual Aldershot Army Display – a huge showcase lasting three days in Rushmoor Arena. This meant devising a massed bands display, fanfares, composing and arranging music and rehearsing the whole show.

In June that year he composed the opening fanfare Aldershot 78 and directed a musical display of 15 Army Bands and Drums totalling 500 musicians. Elsewhere the Band appeared at the Royal Tournament later that summer providing all the background music to the arena displays. Two furthur significant events were the farewell parade through Netley, Hampshire for the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital on 8 August which brought an end to over 100 years’ service to the arena, and the official opening of the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, Woolwich, on 1 November 1978 with the Colonel-in-Chief.

Sadly Maj Parkes was the only Director not to make an LP with the Band, but we do have a recording of the aforementioned broadcast as an example of his very high standards. To quote former member Nigel Bradding: ‘He was a mighty fine person and always expected each and every one of us to give our 100 per cent, which we did and more.’ He took early retirement from the Army aged 50 on 7 May 1979.

Free of military commitments, he pursued a very illustrious career in brass bands and his achievements would fill several columns of this journal. During his 35-year banding career with various bands, he won more than 50 major contests including the treble of the National Championships, British Open and European Championships on two occasions – a feat no other conductor has achieved. He was active with bands to the very end and was the ‘Sir Alex Ferguson’ of the brass band world. Amongst other positions he was President of the Brass Band Heritage Trust.

Maj Parkes died on 12 February 2011 aged 82 and is survived by his second wife, Brigit, three daughters and a son from his first marriage and two sons from his second marriage.

TH