Raising cash for breast cancer

Boobs and Brass: The female band raising cash for breast cancer

In 2006, two friends decided to break the male dominance of the brass band world by forming an all-female band - and called it Boobs and Brass. Eleven years on, they have raised £200,000 for charity and have more than 600 members across the UK.

On Friday, Boobs and Brass was given the BBC Music Day Brass Band Award, for the band that best embodies the BBC Music Day 2017 theme - "the power of music".

The band was born when brass musicians Jane Nichols and Maggie Betts decided to call on all the female players they knew for a charity concert.

With a 25-strong band, the friends expected to raise a few hundred pounds. In fact,

they took £5,000.

"We were absolutely dumbfounded," says Mrs Betts, a 63-year-old cornet player from Northamptonshire.

That first show attracted a big crowd - some of whom, Mrs Betts suspects, were only there because they were curious about the name.

"I don't think they were quite sure what they were getting," she says. "They might have been disappointed!

"All the girls said, 'That was brilliant, we've got to do it again.' And it's just never stopped since."

The band has since grown and split into three branches covering the Midlands, north and south of England. More than 600 people aged between 12-73 are on the database, and the first international offshoot will launch in New Zealand later this year.

Before that inaugural concert, Mrs Nichols and Mrs Betts decided to choose a charity each and split the proceeds. Mrs Nichols gave her half to a campaign for equipment at Kettering Hospital, where she worked.

At the time, a fellow member of Mrs Betts's regular band had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. So she chose Breast Cancer Now.

Over the last 11 years, the Boobs and Brass band members - who are all unpaid - have continued to give concert takings to charity. The total stands at £206,000 - more than £170,000 of which has gone to Breast Cancer Now.

It is a cause that has become particularly personal to the musicians.

Mrs Betts says about 20 members have had treatment for breast cancer, and three are going through it now. The band has become a support group as well as a source of enjoyment.

"It's a very tight-knit community when you've got members who are going through something so drastic," she says. "You just want to be there for them. It's scary. It could be any one of us. You just never know whether it's going to be you."