Totterdown Baptist Church

I suppose I went to this church first because of the trombone. When I was eight years' old my parents read a newspaper article saying that brass instruments were excellent company for hyperactive children. They read another article that said that young lungs shouldn't be strained by brass instruments, so I had to spend a year cycling round the garden waiting for my lungs to grow while my primary school contemporaries practised violently on flutes, clarinets and violins.

My first trombone teacher tried to get me to join the army, but I resisted. My second trombone teacher was trying to pioneer a new technique for building up the embouchure: he would jump up and down on a fitness trampoline while holding long notes and used to answer the door covered in sweat wearing a poledancer's thong. I loved playing the trombone, especially holding long notes. I came second in the secondary school long note competition, though to be fair the winner was a trumpet player supporting his air through a significantly smaller bore.

In 2015 I bumped into one of the Bristol Bang DJs at the Stag and Hounds and the next morning I had joined his band the Relay Rips. He gave me ten songs to learn, and my first gig was one month later at the Grain Barge stage of the notorious Bristol Harbourside Festival. The horn section had swollen to four, and I often had to play off stage at small venues on account of the room required for the slide. The saxophone player left suddenly to get into the Kenyan mobile app game, and so seven years later I moved into his vacant house on Sydenham Rd.

The church warden at Totterdown Baptist Church at the end of Sydenham Rd was extremely amenable, though we spent half an hour trying unsuccessfully to find the organ on switch and eventually gave up. I have no pictures or recordings. The last person to play it, the Totterdown Baptist Church organist, died two years ago. I hope there is someone out there who can come and let the air ring out at the church again.

As I left, the church warden suggested I get in touch with the organist of the Parish Church of St Martin, Knowle, so I sent him a message.