King Arthur

For many years, I played in a corps brass band where we were organised in a horseshoe shape and in two rows. There were risers or small platforms used to elevate those sitting in the back row so that they could see and be seen above those sitting in the front row. These carpeted risers sat about 30cm tall.

If you were sitting in the back row, there was always the risk that if you pushed your chair too far back, the rear legs of the chair would slip off the edge of the riser and you would fall backwards. And that’s what happened to Arthur.

Arthur was a lovely elder gentleman in the band; one of those who said he would play until he was ‘promoted to glory’. So, even in his 70s, he worked his trombone slide hard. I suspect some of the band arrangements we played were beyond his playing capability and he just made up his own part – this became especially obvious when he kept playing when the band had finished the piece! – but you had to admire his dedication.

One Wednesday night, we were rehearsing and, as I did in those days, I was tootling away on cornet and sitting opposite the trombone section with the bandmaster furiously waving his arms right between us. Then I noticed some movement.

As the band played, I saw Arthur start to fall backwards and then two legs came up in the air with the trombone still in the playing position. The band immediately stopped at the commotion and the players closest to Arthur quickly turned to see if he was okay.

His chair had fallen straight back, leaving him still ‘seated’ but on his back on the floor. He was still holding his trombone in the playing position (i.e. now pointing straight up at the roof), and when he was asked if he was okay he said, “I’m fine, thank you”, and he started playing his trombone!

Well, we laughed. The bandmaster struggled to get us back on track after that. Arthur was returned to his usual seating position and assured us he was feeling fine, and rehearsal eventually resumed. While the fall straight back, off a low platform, might have harmed a younger person, clearly Arthur was made of sterner stuff.

It was nice to see some of the younger players in the band express amazement that he was not harmed and laugh at his ‘laid back’ approach to trombone playing. Arthur won some new friends and some new-found respect that day as he entered legendary status.

This was further cemented the day we participated in an Anzac Day march and Arthur insisted he was still fit enough to march. Well, I’m glad to say, he did march and marched well, all the way to the end.

The only moment he gave us some cause for concern was when he slid the trombone slide right off the trombone and it fell on the street, causing him to go back and pick it up and then chase the band as we continued to march, trying to play and not laugh.

Every band has an ‘Arthur’. We loved ours dearly.

–      Major Mal Davies is Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.