AAP General News (Australia)
04-23-2009
Tas: Bugler's call for help
By Paul Carter
HOBART, April 23 AAP - If you think it's tough choking back the emotion during the
Last Post on Anzac Day spare a thought this year for the bugler.
Army Reserve Corporal Ashley Thomson blew the haunting call at the State funeral for
the last living Gallipoli veteran, Alec Campbell, in 2002.
He played it at the funeral for Tasmania's last living World War I veteran, Frank MacDonald,
in 2003.
He'll play it again as usual on Saturday in Hobart at the dawn service, a Cathedral
Mass and at the Cenotaph, before sounding it at an AFL match in Launceston.
Despite all his experience, the 51-year-old Cpl Thomson says the Last Post still effects him.
Its emotion threatens to trip what he says is a proud duty that has terrified him at times.
"How much it means to other people never escapes me," Cpl Thomson said this week.
"When you've got a crowd and they are crying, it just obviously means so much to them.
"But I invariably try not to look at the people because I can't afford to get caught
up in the emotion.
"I will usually pick something in the distance, spot a tree, and I'll just concentrate
on the tone quality.
"I don't think about how the piece goes because I've played it that many times.
"And because everybody is silent I can picture myself at home.
"I just try to distance myself and get through it well.
"But I'm always mindful that it's not the bugle show.
"Every person that stands up in silence is honouring the fallen and I'm just a part
of that sequence."
Home in the Huon River hamlet of Geeveston, where the army reservist works in a hardware
store, is the place where Cpl Thomson does his best bugling practice, he says.
Buglers don't get to warm up, so a "cold" session first thing in the morning prepares
him to play in Hobart's sometimes harsh April dawns, he says.
"I've discovered the best way to practice is get up in the morning and pick up the
bugle from the kitchen table and the first thing I do for the day is see if I can do a
really good call totally cold - just pick it up and do it," Cpl Thomson said.
There are 80 dawn services in Tasmania on Saturday and the demand for buglers far outstrips
supply.
Cpl Thomson says more school children, who play cornet or trumpet, should be encouraged
to learn the bugle and play at dawn services.
"It's not a hard piece of music at all," he says.
"What is hard is the situation you are doing it under.
"And most brass players like the comfort of being in the ensemble and not sitting out
the front being so exposed.
"I did my first bugle call at my school when I was about 11 and I remember it clearly.
It was terrible.
"But the more you do it the more confident you get."
Tasmania's RSL president Tony Scott agrees more school students should be nurtured
to play the bugle at dawn services.
He says there's been a shortage of players at local services for years.
"All we are trying to do is see if there are some younger ones out there who are musicians
and want to take on the job of being a bugler," Mr Scott said this week.
"The Last Post is a major part of any service and there's nothing more moving to hear
than a live playing of Last Post - it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
"So hopefully we can get some more buglers coming up through the ranks so to speak
and have a go."
Cpl Thomson's band unit is claiming a boast this year with Army Reserve Corporal Keiron
Foley being one of only two reservists selected to play (saxophone) with the Australian
Army band corp contingent at the Gallipoli dawn service.
Six Tasmanian school students, winners of the Frank MacDonald Memorial Prize, will
be at Anzac Cove to see him play.
They are being led on a 16-day trip that includes a tour of the battlefields of Europe
after making winning studies of Australia's military history.
Their teachers, some Tasmanian RSL representatives and the state's Police Minister
Jim Cox will also make the tour.
Cpl Thomson's said he's never been to Gallipoli, but playing Last Post there at the
dawn service is a dream of his.
AAP pc/mo
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