Antony J. Richards

Director of Music of The Band Of The Life Guards from 1970 to 1984. He joined the Regimental Band of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (QMO) as a Band boy in Wolfenbuttel, Germany in 1946, and was described as an extremely popular young man and a superb musician. He was posted to the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall in 1952 to attend a Bandmaster’s Course, and became Bandmaster of the Lancashire Fusiliers (1956 to 1964). He was then commissioned as Director of Music of the Alamein Staff Band of the Royal Tank Regiment, and remained in that post until 1970 when he became Director of Music of The Life Guards. Soon after arriving he was promoted to Major (DOM) and then became the Senior Director of Music, Household Cavalry. While with The Life Guards, he formed a record company called Fionmace, which was extremely successful until he sold the business in the late 1990s. He retired from the Army in 1984 and went to the Middle East as DOM of the Royal Oman Police Band where he was promoted to Colonel. Whilst in Oman he made his mark by designing and building an enormous School of Music for the use of over 200 bandsmen. He also significantly raised the standard of musicianship in the Omani Police Band which, when he first arrived, was very basic. Upon his retirement in 1995, he returned to England and spent his spare time teaching the piano and singing in his local church choir. He died on 16 February 2002, aged 71.