Marching to remember them

A familiar face at LRH recently packed their baton, cornet and uniform to embark on the musical trip of lifetime with the City of Traralgon Band.

LRH prosthetics and orthotics manager Bruce Poole set off with about 60 people including band members and cohorts to perform in places with significant war history, during a European tour of Remembrance.

The tour was an opportunity to represent Gippsland and Australia in places such as the Western Front, Villers-Bretonneux, Paris, Menin Gate, Denmark and the Chelsea Barracks England.

It included performing at the graves of fallen diggers from Gippsland and in front of dignitaries from around the world including the Australian Ambassador in Copenhagen.

But the highlight for Bruce was leading the band in a real-life version of the 90s movie Brassed Off, performing in northern England from village-to-village as part of the famous Whit Friday contests.

The band even won the best international band and tuba sections as well as matching the British Army band on points for the quality of its marching.

“This was an international competition, and I was stressed as I had to lead the band and march, but once we got into the swing of it, it was a lot of fun,” Bruce said.

“Thousands of people gathered for this, it was a great experience and we could hear the crowd sing along with Waltzing Matilda. We entertained people and we were also entertained.”

Bruce joined the band about 10 years ago after putting music on hiatus for many years, but picked up his cornet again when his kids said they wanted to go along to a come and try session.

The community band is well-known for playing at the Traralgon Christmas parade and Anzac services, and had gone on a similar European tour 10 years ago for the centenary of World War 1.

“This tour took two years of organising, there was hours-and-hours of work going into this. We are a community band and we went there representing our town and country,” Bruce said.

“This band is a great group of people, we self-funded this tour, we are all good friends and are friendly and supportive.”