Band History

The band began life in the Grangetown area of Cardiff in the early 1960's primarily to lead the many street carnivals that were taking place at that time. There were about 40 members back then from all age groups and great encouragement was given to the young members, who would eventually become the backbone of the band during it's successful competition period.

The original name was St Patricks, Cardiff because there was a close affilation to the local church of this name. As the band players became more accomplished the emphasis switched from street carnivals , although these were still undertaken, to competition and as the attachment to St Patricks became fragmented , the name was changed to the City of Cardiff PB. Under this name the band enjoyed good success in the Grade IV RSPBA competitons .

However, in the late 1970's numbers had dwindled so much that the band was unable to take part in competitions.
There were now very few learners coming into the band.

In 1978 the band joined together with the pipers from the Cwmbran element of the disbanded Bristol and Cwmbran PB and became the Welsh Piping Society PB. This doubled the number of pipers available and the band was able to participate in competitions once more. In the first season of this combination the band won every event entered and was promoted to Grade III.

A couple of years hard work was paying dividends and in 1993 the band became British G III champions. Sadly after this a couple of key members left the band and thus began another decline into almost oblivion. About two years ago a real effort was applied to reuniting as many old members as possible and effectively starting at the bottom again to produce a band.

Currently ther are approx 30 members, many are in the 6-10 year old bracket and it is hoped these can be moulded into a band for the future. We hope to achieve competition standard by 2004. The band would welcome interest from anyone in the community wishing to learn either pipes, side drum, tenor drum, or bass drum. The former two disciplines being the most difficult to master.