UPTON Youth Band will go ahead with an open-air performance on Sunday afternoon after organisers of the Upton Jazz Festival found a slot for them.

Corps director Helen Lane said: "We haven't been booked by the Jazz Festival but we are the Upton band and we contacted the festival secretary to say we were going to play.

"We will be promoting our kids - 22 full band members and eight cadets, who will nearly all be taking part."

Mrs Lane said the band was booked for the festival two years ago but had not been asked this year.

"We'll be playing our own music, including Rock Around the Clock and Down by the Riverside," she said.

Festival organiser "Sir" Alan Buckley said: "We do invite them now and again, although they aren't what you would call a jazz band. We encourage youth bands but we select different bands each year, to give everyone a chance to play.

"That was the aim of the festival when we started 16 years ago. At the time there were about eight bands playing all the festivals, now we have 30 changes in the band line-up every year."

The youth band will be playing at 1pm in the old churchyard by the Pepperpot.