About

Gavin and I met in 1990 at Balfour Junior School. I was smitten from our first meeting. He was my first real crush, the handsome boy from the upper school (he was two years above me) who would come down to the lower school playground and play games like Red Rover, Bulldog, and Scorpion, the last of which was insane, and the fact we didn’t end up with major injuries still blows my mind!

But a few years before we met, Gavin found his calling with an after-school activity that was fairly obscure back in 1980’s England. Gavin joined the Southern Knights in 1988, and in those early years, quickly cemented his place as one of the young and rising stars of the activity. Starting in the Cadet guard, by the time I joined in 1994, he was the star of the A Class guard, and watching him that season in the A guard’s “Beetlejuice” show made me fall equally in love with the activity!

In 1995 my initial crush on Gav changed into the beginning of our lifelong friendship. I joined him in the A guard, and I quickly realised that he was one of the funniest people I had ever known or would ever know for that matter. Back then, he would always be finding some way to cause mischief at practice, and would often end up blaming it on me, like the time he broke his axe attempting to do a turn around under it and hitting the ceiling beams at Stringer. He and I both had blue axes so you can guess what he did when no one was looking. But I didn’t care, the boy I had admired from a far for a few years was quickly becoming my person.

The following years at SK showcased his talent and ability to turn anything into a trick. From his first ever rifle solos in 1996’s “Jazz Guitar”, to playing the starring role of Romeo in 1998’s WGUK A Class Championship winning show of Baz Lurman’s “Romeo and Juliet”, it was obvious he was destined for huge things in the activity. He was a born performer, writing sabre solos on the spot having never been trained to spin one, or capturing the hearts of hundreds of young guard performers watching him perform at finals each year, he was quickly, and deservedly, becoming a colourguard celebrity in our world. And he was good! So good! Even with basically zero technical training on weapon, he was a natural, fearless, and trend setting. I loved to watch him spin!

In 1999 Gav and I left SK and ventured further afield. To be honest, I left because he did. He wanted to learn more than SK could teach him, and I wanted to be wherever he was. So that winter we made our way to Autumn. That was our first year in Open Class, performing Pat Metheny’s “First Circle”. It was a huge leap from what we knew. We had to learn to dance for the first time, something that was so foreign to us both. But we stuck at it and found a new home where Gav could continue to grow his skill set. The season ended with him essentially being scouted by Mayflower to fill a hole for their end of season trip to WGI, and for the first time Gav got to spin with the big kids! There was absolutely no going back from that point on. He was off and flying.

2000 saw the first year that Gav and I were apart. It was probably one of the toughest winter seasons I have ever experienced, not having my sidekick with me each week. But watching him perform “Rent” with Mayflower was so inspiring! I think that was the year I caught the bug to want to be the best I could be, and it was because that was exactly what he was doing! Mayflower won the WGUK Open Class title that year, and watching Gavin celebrate with new friends was so bittersweet, made all the more tough due to the fact I knew he was leaving for the summer. He was headed out to live his dream! He was headed to DCI in the USA!

That summer Gavin marched with the Madison Scouts. I think that season was pivotal for him. He saw just how far this activity could take him. And even amongst some of the best performers in the world he still stood out above the rest! His presence on the field was electric! He was such a natural.
The following winter I reunited with Gavin and we both went to Mayflower for their debut in WGI’s World Class. I had no clue what that meant when I signed up, but the day I arrived at De La Salle for the first time they handed me a King sabre and told me to “try this.” That was the first day of my love hate relationship with sabre, and also the day I officially became a member of the Mayflower sabre line. Seeing the difference in Gavin was amazing though. He had changed so much in just the short year we had spent spinning in different places. Back then, outside of colourguard, I pretty much spent every waking moment with Gavin. Either walking around Brighton with not a whole lot to do or watching films with amazing colourguard show inspiring soundtracks in the loft of his house on Ditchling Road, while tucking into a Raj Poot! Raj Poot was the name of the Indian Restaurant down the street, but Gav never suggested we order a curry, he would always say to me, “Do you fancy a Raj Poot?” But now we were back together at Mayflower, and I think that’s where our duo of mayhem really began. We were always in trouble, from tying streamers onto people’s equipment in a run through, to pretending to chop each other’s feet off with our sabres, if something important was being said you could bet Gavin and I would miss it!

Our years together at Mayflower were some of the most fun, but most difficult of my personal colourguard journey. But Gav was there with me, and on our long drives back to Brighton we would often fall asleep instantly, proving to be the worst passengers anyone could wish for. 2001 was my first trip to WGI, and we did a show about time, or circles, or spandex, or something, I actually never knew what it was about. But at WGI in Milwaukee Wisconsin that year Gavin celebrated with some kid’s sunglasses that looked like ladybirds that he picked up at K-Mart when the rest of the guard were buying water for practice. At the end of that week of new adventures we said goodbye to Gav again as he headed off on his second summer with the Madison Scouts.

2002 will always stand out as my favourite year of colourguard ever. Mayflower had seven boys in the guard that winter, a number simply unheard of at that time in our activity. It was the winter of “The Moulin Rouge”. The show was groundbreaking in the UK! There were 21 of us, a number that seemed so huge to me at the time, and throughout the season we became 21 of the closest friends I think I have ever had the joy of spinning with. Still to this day people ask me about that show, a masterpiece of the era, and a crowd favourite still all these years later. Of course, the show finished with Gavin, and our amazing captain, Lisa O’Keefe, stealing the show in the back corner of the floor, as only they could!

The following summer Gavin set off on a new adventure. He was going to become the first ever UK male member of The Cadets Colourguard! I was simply in awe. The Cadets had been my dream corps to march with since I saw their 1996 show, and to know that my best friend, my person, was going to march there was a dream come true. I was simply so incredibly proud of him. That summer they did a show based on music from war time, and Gav got to play the part of a US Army soldier going off to war. Watching the video of their performance I almost didn’t recognize him. I had seen US performers at WGI the previous year, and to me, the performers in the US just seemed to have such a superior confidence about them compared to the way we performed in the UK. But Gavin broke those boundaries, and his performance that summer brought me to tears. Simply phenomenal. He had made it! He was on the summit of the colourguard mountain, placing the British flag firmly into the ground for our entire UK colourguard family. And to top it all off, he brought home with him a DCI bronze medal!

The winter of 2003, I think, will go down as one of the toughest but most ground-breaking seasons in WGUK history. 2003 was the winter of Mayflower’s “Hallelujah.” That year, we took a break from the regular WGUK season, so that we could take advantage of the open age rule in WGI. Back then, WGI rules didn’t really have any accommodations for guards from outside the US whose circuits may have different age rules. So, we did what we had to to be able to include members and talent who had already reached the UK age limit of 25. This made for a really difficult season. We focused solely on practice and WGI. We had two competitive performances all season, one of which we traveled to Boston, Massachusetts for a weekend for, and spent the rest of our time practicing. I can vividly remember our staff following our prelims performance in Dayton, Ohio at the WGI World Championships. In 2001 we had gone all the way to the US and not made the cut. It was devastating. No European colourguard had ever made the top 15 in World Class finals at WGI. But we were out to try and break that barrier. We wanted that 15th place spot so badly. There was a moment in our show that year where Gav had to pick me up and hold me on his shoulder while I did a one handed 45 toss on a flag. Of course, we found this hilarious and would be the ones to mess around at every practice, often getting us in trouble. But in our finals run, as I ran up to him, and before he lifted me up, he said to me, “We got this!” I knew he didn’t mean the lift. We knew we had that; we had done it a million times. He meant we were going to make finals. It’s like he just knew! After the show, our staff did their best to contain their excitement, but it was impossible. As the scores slowly trickled out from prelims, we realised, we hadn’t gotten the 15th spot, we ended up in 11th place! That moment where we discovered the news will live in my heart forever! We finished the season on the highest possible high and became the first European colourguard in history to make Independent World Class finals at WGI!

The summer of 2003 was Gavin’s age out from DCI, and he returned to The Cadets for his final adventure. I had wanted to go with him, so in the winter of 2002 I pooled what little cash I had and went with him to Cadets camp in New Jersey. I didn’t make the cut, the talent in the guard that year was outstanding, but I got to see Gav in his element! Surrounded by the people who pushed him to be the very best, and also loved him just as much as I always had. I think Gav’s summer with The Cadets 2003 colourguard, or the CBCCG03 as they are fondly known, was the happiest time of his life. And even though I didn’t make the cut, I got to go on tour with The Cadets’ sister corps, The Crossmen, and watch him live out his dream. It truly was the happiest I had ever seen him!
The winter of 2004 saw Gav head to San Diego, California, to march Corona. It was Corona’s first year, but their director, Michael Shapiro, was a household name in the activity, and had displayed his amazing talent for designing with so many outstanding groups. Michael had written our “Hallelujah” show at Mayflower, and I think he recognized the special spark in Gav that we were all familiar with. I also ventured to the US in 2004, but to the opposite corner of the country, and opposite weather, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the longest competing colourguard in the US, Blessed Sacrament. Gav and I spoke daily through AOL instant messenger, seeing as neither of us could work on our US visitor visas, so we definitely had time to kill. I travelled down to California in the January that year, escaping the frozen tundra of New England’s endless snowstorms, and spent an amazing and sunny week with Gav and the other UK members of Corona. We got to be tourists in Los Angeles, and watch their housemate’s dog Nico eat the floor in the living room. I think our trips to Target were some of the funniest experiences of my life! And we finished up that amazing winter with one last venture to WGI, albeit this time in San Diego, rather than Dayton, which was a little strange, but just as magical.

I think aging out was tough for Gav. Performing at the world class level, something that had given him such a lease on life, had suddenly come to an end. I think he, like all of us age outs eventually do, felt a little lost. In 2004 I finally lived out my dream of joining The Cadets, and Gav let me know just how proud he was of me every chance he got. I think he also enjoyed the fact that we got to share an experience, albeit not together, of a history of tradition and excellence at one of the most prominent organisations in the Drum Corps world. He was my biggest cheer leader that summer, sending me care packages of tea bags and Monster Munch when I was missing so many comforts of home.

Gav didn’t let the “Age Out Blues” keep him down for long though. He channeled his passion for our activity into coaching and designing. Throughout the end of the 2000’s he quickly rose to notoriety as one of the most talented young designers for the British Open Class. In 2005 he won the UK title with our home team of SK, followed by many years of success stemming from ideas he had had when we were kids. 2006’s “Love Actually” where we got to reunite on the performance arena, 2007’s “A Beautiful Mind,” and 2008’s “A Paradise Lost,” based on a film he and I had watched together many times, Requiem for a Dream. Every time we watched it he would tell me he wanted to write a show based on it one day. 2008 was my last year in British colourguard, so I always thought it was fitting that I got to march in that show, his show, the one he had always wanted to write, and one I know he was so proud of. His talent for designing seemed to know no boundaries! He continued on throughout the 2010’s churning out masterpiece after masterpiece, never scared to push the limits, and passing his wealth of knowledge onto the UK colourguard performers and designers of tomorrow. He shaped the activity in the UK, and beyond into Europe, into what we know it as today, encouraging others to take risks and think outside the box!

But to me he was my friend, my person, my true love, the person I needed in my life, and who encouraged me to be the best version of myself possible. I ended up moving to the US and starting a life because of the experiences I had in colourguard. And I had those experiences because of Gavin. The activity in the UK owes so much to Gavin, more than anyone could ever know. But I know what I owe him, I owe him my world!

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To wrap up:

Gavin was so much to so many people. He lit up the world for those around him. His passion for colourguard, friendship, and the people he loved was electric. His absence leaves such a hole in so many people’s lives, and the pain of that will forever live with us. But as we grow in our lives we will carry his memory with us, forever and always, knowing he will be a part of us all for the rest of our time on this earth.

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Ellen McClenathan

A poor life this if,  full of care

We have no time to stand and stare

Leisure - W. H. Davie