The Barrow Steelworks Band outlasted its old workplace by several decades and remained a pillar of the community, with The Mail present for countless performances.

Formed in 1889 as the Rising Star Life Boat Crew Temperance Brass Band, for years they had a keen rivalry with Vickers, but by the 1960s it needed its members to rally round and ensure its survival, with interest in brass bands beginning to decline.

It was through this that they reached their centenary in 1989, when they were practicing every Monday in Barrow Library, although by then their conductor Jim Hutton admitted things weren’t what they once were.

He said: “All bands seemed to suffer in the 60s, certainly ones who supported themselves.

“I think it was a combination of TV and the Beatles, people were playing guitars more and weren’t as interested in cornets.”

Nonetheless, the band marked the occasion with a performance at the Lisdoonie Hotel in Barrow, backed by the Centenary Choir, which had been formed two years previously to mark the 100th birthday of the Town Hall.

Down the years, the band had scored many successes in competitions, arguably the most notable coming in 1983 when, led by Arthur Baker, they won the One Hundred Guinea Gold Cup in the prestigious Belle Vue contest.

They used their music to back The Mail’s appeal to raise funds for schoolboy Daniel Hornby to attend an exclusive choir school at Ripon by playing in Dalton Road in 1993.