Extract from the Penmaenmawr Sliver Prize Band Scrap Book by Iorwerth Edwards

The Broken Melody 1932

The Penmaenmawr town band have downed tools.
All is peace but it cannot be said a holy calm pervades them, for there is a disagreement between them and the local council about the hours on which they are to perform upon the promenade.
This is unpleasing at a time when protests are heard from the eisteddfod that brass brands have scarcely been treated with what they consider proper reverence.
Even a fiddler does not like people to think they have him on a string because he plays on one.
In Penmaenmawr the rumour spreads that unless the matter is settled to their satisfaction they will hand in their instruments - whatever tonic the visitors get it will not be "Sol-Fah".

This is scarcely the manner in which musicians great in history, would have dealt with a crisis of this kind. Joshua's brass band. for instance. which with a toot or two blew down the walls of Jericho. would not have been content to wait and see.
Musicians must have been Giants in those days and had their successors of today been men of equal brawn and lung power. we should have trembled for the houses of the Councillors of Penmaenmawr. the incident gives opportunity to test a theory set out by Sir Hugh Allen. principal of the Royal Collage of music, humorously,
the other day he said that if we would live out even half our days "with out being mowed down by the pestilence that walked by night - the motor lorries or the pestilence that walketh by day - sports nine" - we must train our ears and cultivate the art of listening and the music was the thing to help us in the matter. If that theory be correct. we can expect an increase of motor accidents in Penmaenmawr now that the Town band has stopped.
Even " the vile squeaking of the wry-necked file" which Shylook was so cross about is preferable to being run over, and though we would not for a moment think the melodies of Penmaenmawr could be described in this rough way, it is evident that the sooner the town band ceases to strike, in order to strike up again. the better.