The RAF March Past, written in 1918 by H Walford Davies, later Master of the King's Musick in the 1930s, is a familiar tune. Has it been previously noted that its opening phrase is very redolent of that of a song by A P Graves, Marching To Candahar, commemorating a triumphant forced march from Kabul to relieve the siege of Kandahar by General Roberts and his troops in the Second Afghan War, 1880, which was included in the New National Song Book of 1906. It was subsequently included by Walford Davies in a songbook for schools which he edited, I think in the 1930s, called The New Fellowship Song Book, which I remember singing from at Northampton Town & County School in the early 1940s.

Has anyone else noticed a resemblance between these two tunes? Who agrees with me that Davies probably derived the opening phrase of his distinguished march from Graves' Afghan War song, which he certainly knew as he published it in his above-mentioned collection?

~Michael~