4BR catches up with Andrew Coe, the Band Manager of Grimethorpe Colliery Band to find out more about their recent award of £47,515 from the second round of the UK Government's £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund.

Administered by Arts Council England to help the organisation's recover and reopen following a year of enforced shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he reveals that it has come at perhaps the most crucial time in the band's existence since the end of the Miners' Strike.

He talks about the work that went into the application and the reasons for it — including the stark facts of the loss of income suffered by the band during the pandemic, and what it means for the future for Grimethorpe and perhaps for the banding movement as a whole.