" BRASSED OFF " day two

On 1st November 1995, I was on my way to Birmingham to be in my second scene of " Brassed Off", the film that turned out to be very popular when it was released in 1996 around the same time as " The Full Monty ".
I had been chosen to be one of the Judges of the Brass Band Competition as it is being presented to the Conductor of the Grimley Colliery Brass Band.
On my way to the location at Birmingham Town Hall, where the scenes were being shot, I became stuck in a traffic jam on the M6 due to an accident. My call time on that morning was 8 am and at that time I was able to use my mobile phone to call my agent to inform her that I would arrive as soon as I was able. It was also a snowy morning which had made the journey longer than usual. I eventually arrived at the venue and was ushered immediately onto the stage to film the first part of the scene.
It turned out to be the scene where the conductor, Danny, played by Pete Postlethwaite, had discharged himself from hospital to enable himself to get to the Albert Hall in London, to be with his beloved Grimley Colliery Band who he has led through the various rounds of the competition to reach the Grand Final.
He arrives during the band's performance of the " William Tell Overture" where they are being conducted by a stand in conductor being played by Jim Carter( Mr Carson from " Downton Abbey ".
As Danny goes to receive the winner's cup from the Judge, played by Ronnie Stevens, he goes into a big speech about the importance of music and his disappointment of the Government's decision to close the coal mines in the Yorkshire area.
Pete Postlethwaite's performance was electric and he delivered the speech without a rehearsal to the audience, who were hearing it for the first time because the Director wanted to film the genuine expressions of the audience to the speech they were hearing.
There is a clip of " Danny's Speech" on Google via " Brassed Off, Danny's speech ", where I can be seen standing next to Ronnie Stevens to begin with, and then, in the long shot, I can be seen second judge from the left, behind the Championship Cup, which is sitting on a table on the stage.During the speech, I was standing right behind Pete and was very impressed with his great, and very believable  performance of an impassioned Yorkshire Brass Band leader.
It was a tremendous privilege for me to have been in that scene at close hand and experience the atmosphere created by some excellent acting from a tremendously talented cast.
I said to one of the bandsmen, during one of our breaks from filming, who are your band really, and he replied Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band, I told him that I came from Kettering and that in the 1950's I had followed our local Brass Band, The Munn & Felton's Brass Band, when they won the National Brass Band Championship, forty years earlier.