And the title says the lot.
The purists will point that it is highly unlikely that anyone would be dancing a fandango by a bandstand.
After all as my Wikipedia tell me a “fandango is a lively partner dance originating in Portugal and Spain, usually in triple meter, traditionally accompanied by guitars, castanets, tambourine or hand-clapping. Fandango can both be sung and danced”.*
And that very likely would knock over a few of the chairs around the bandstand and upset Mrs. Trellis of Cleckheaton.
According to one source on public parks, the bandstand owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient. The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples.**
The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.
And almost 70 years after I encountered my first bandstand Tony Goulding came across this one in Tenerife, and knowing my fascination for them took time out from his holiday to snap front and back.
‘Nuff said
Pictures, 2024, from the collection of Tony Goulding
*Bandstands, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Bandstands
**A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56
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