ANYONE who has seen the Public and Commercial Services union’s Samba band in action will almost certainly remember it. The band plays on trade union and campaign marches where it always has a big impact.

Samba isn’t just drum banging. It’s political. It has history. It’s the music of oppressed slaves in South America. It’s drum music of protest.

It’s also about bringing together people without a voice — and giving them one. And it’s about unity and celebration.

As such it fits perfectly with the upsurge of political and industrial action the UK has seen in the last 18 months.

That’s meant a lot of work for band founder Dave Vincent and his partner Rowena Fehilly – it’s meant many more performances to organise along with the regular annual events at which the band plays, such as May Day marches, the Tory Party annual conference protest and the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign’s annual march and rally in recent years.

Since being founded over 11 years ago the band has played at 185 events, most of them marches – 30 of those were in 2022, a band record.

The PCS Samba Band is based in the north of England. Its founder Vincent lives in the small town of Hebden Bridge in the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, in the heart of the Pennines, with his partner of 30 years Fehilly who is also involved in the band.

Both are former Civil Service workers and PCS activists who worked in the Ministry of Justice. Dave was for 35 years secretary of the biggest PCS branch in the department, Greater Manchester, his home city: “The slums of Manchester, no toilet, no bathroom, then brought up in a council house – and proud of that,” he said.

Rowena, who is originally from Stevenage, was equally active – former PCS branch organiser, secretary and chair.

Although they’re retired they’re today as active politically as they have ever been.

They are respectively chair and secretary of the Unite Community branch in the Calder Valley, on top of running what they say is a rare UK politically motivated, trade union oriented samba protest band which travels nationwide to take part in, and often lead, marches.

The inspiration to form a Samba band came to Dave from being on protest marches in London.

“It seemed to be a feature of London protests to have a Samba band,” he said. “The first I saw was the Stop the War on Iraq march in 2003.

“It was massive, huge. You couldn’t just join the march. People were being kept in side streets waiting to join.

“I heard these drums in the distance. Everyone was transfixed. We’d been standing around for ages. It really lifted the mood. I was just blown away by it.

“I thought ‘why don’t we have that up north?’ Marches in the north were like funerals — absolute silence. I thought ‘this is awful.’”

Then he explained the political nature of Samba — that it comes from Brazil, and its roots are in the communities of slaves transported to South America from Africa.

“It was about bringing poor people together. Drumming empowered the protests of the poor. Samba is unifying, celebratory, defiant. It’s saying ‘we are here, now hear us!’

“Some people find chanting threatening. If they hear it coming they can’t tell the difference between football hooligan chanting and other chanting. It suggests trouble to them.

“Samba’s not threatening. It’s joyous. It gets people tapping their feet. It makes them want to dance. It’s not militaristic. Miltary drumming is intended to fire soldiers up, get them ready to kill.”

In 2011, having decided to start the PCS band through his union’s branch in Greater Manchester, Dave started looking for drums.

“It started with an old drum kit – bass drum, snare drum,” he said.

Then Rowena bought a couple of second-hand drums at a car boot sale and it grew from there. To recruit band members Dave advertised through his union branch.

The first rehearsal took place in the community room of a fire station in Salford in Greater Manchester.

“Nine people turned up,” he said.

In the meantime he’d learnt Samba rhythms, the intricacies of the music, the different inflections. Rowena learned to drum at the same time.

“The band grew slowly but surely,” said Dave.

Its first performance was at a Manchester march during the public-sector pensions strike on November 11 2011.

“It was a multi-union strike,” said Dave. “There were nearly 2.4 million out. It was the biggest multi-union strike since 1926.

“That was the first outing of the PCS Samba Band. I was very nervous.”

Rowena said: “I was nearly throwing up on the picket line beforehand, I was so worried.”

The outing was a success. The drumming went down a storm, and the band went from strength to strength, receiving more invitations to perform, and more members joining.

“Now there are 50 members on the contact list though we don’t get 50 turning out,” said Dave. “The Tory Party conference in 2017 was one of the biggest so far at that point – 38 turned up for that.

“Our biggest was the Tory Party conference in 2021. There were 44 players.

“The biggest turnouts seem to be the Tory conference protests, which isn’t surprising,” said Dave. “That and the NHS.”

The Tories often stage their annual conferences in Manchester, the band’s home territory, which helps.

The band has also become multi-union. Its drummers include members of six unions — PCS of course, Unison, Unite and Unite Community, UCU, NEU and AEP (educational psychologists).

“People come up to us and say ‘that was fantastic! I want to join but I’m not in PCS.’

“It doesn’t matter. The band is open to anyone who wants to join who supports trade unionism,” said Dave.

“The other qualification is that we march in accordance with PCS policies. PCS has progressive policies, like supporting Stop the War, Unite Against Fascism, Stand Up To Racism, the People’s Assembly, climate change. It’s one of the few unions which is against Trident renewal.”

The band is aware of the threat posed by the Tories’ draconian anti-protest legislation.

First, in April last year the Tories introduced the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. In April this year the highly controversial Public Order Bill was finally passed in the House of Lords, introducing even more powers to restrict people’s fundamental right to peaceful protest.

Among the elements of the legislation are new powers for Home Secretaries, current and in the future, to ban marches and demonstrations because they believe they might be “seriously disruptive,” including being “too noisy.”

Dave believes that as the band usually performs on the move, taking part in marches, its drumming can’t be deemed to be causing anyone a nuisance.

Far from being a nuisance, public response to the band has been positive.

“People come out of shops to listen to us,” said Dave. “It’s partly the rhythms. It gets people tapping their feet. It’s classic Samba and other world beats – a joyous celebration, bringing people together, and behind a cause.”

There’s no membership fee to join the band. Dave and Rowena provide the drums. The band has a very small budget for costs such as replacement drumsticks and drum skins.

It doesn’t charge to perform but asks for travelling expenses if funds allow. And it’s not available for commercial hire.

“We don’t do corporate events,” says Dave.

Having started with bits of an old drum kit and a couple of drums from a car boot sale Dave and Rowena now have more than 40 drums – new members are loaned one.

“The garage and the loft are pretty stuffed. Packed,” said Rowena.

Many of the drums will be in action today in Leeds at the Northern March for the NHS marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the service in 1948.

They’ll be marching at the October Tory Party conference protest and playing at the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in August.

The band is always open to new members. Dave said: “The band is 75-80 per cent women, and 95 per cent of players had never played a drum before joining.”