Remembrance Day 2010

Yesterday was Remembrance Day. Musically November 11^th  has always been a busy day for marching pipe bands and trumpeters capable of laying down a flawless version of the Last Post followed, after two minutes of silence, by a snappy Reveille. 

For over 30-years as a secondary school music director I was called upon every November to field a band for student Remembrance Day ceremonies.  The first ceremony I ever conducted was at a newly built school in Port Alberni. Eric Dunn Junior Secondary School was a novel design, better suited for Southern California’s sunny landscape than our monsoon lashed West Coast environment. Clusters of module classrooms were scattered on a wooded hillside, joined together by numerous outdoor cement staircases. Changing classes meant moving outdoors along open roof-covered walkways, nice on sunny days, not so in the middle of a lashing winter rainstorm.

The new school had no indoor area large enough to house a student assembly. The gymnasium had been axed from the construction schedule for lack of funding. The only available area for large gatherings was an open courtyard between a group of classroom clusters. However I was in luck for my first Remembrance Day ceremony. It was sunny but very cold, although thankfully not frosty enough to freeze the valves on the brass instruments. Ceremonies in later years were held a few blocks away at First United Church which, along with the church’s gymnasium, the school district rented for assemblies and PE classes until the government finally released the funding needed to have a physical education building built on the Dunn property.  A band room for the school’s music program was built atop the shower rooms of the new gym complex. Up to then I’d taught band alternating between the metalwork and woodworking shops.

After 15 years at EJ Dunn I transferred to Alberni District Secondary School where it was a tradition for the school band to play the community’s Remembrance Day Ceremony organized by the Legion.  Each year I’d ask for students to volunteer for the ceremony and never had a problem filling the orchestra pit with musicians.  Upon my retirement I was honoured to be awarded a life-membership in the Canadian Legion.

During the last decade there has been a growing trend across the country towards the staging of Remembrance Day concerts featuring everything from choral ensembles through to professional symphony orchestras. Last weekend the community choir Timbre! included a set of selections in their fall program in tribute to our veterans and members of the Canadian Forces. One of the most moving was For The Fallen, composed by Mike Sammes and based on the well-known text by Canadian poet Laurence Binyon. A favourite with the audience was a bevy of Songs That Soldiers Sang including Lili Marlene, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, The White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll Meet Again.

Early yesterday morning I watched the national Remembrance Day ceremony playing out on a sun bathed Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Three hours later I viewed the annual ceremony broadcast from Victoria and Vancouver. Then it was time to heave my piano into my van and head for the Parksville Legion to play a dance with the Arrowsmith Big Band. In the Mood, Sing Sing Sing, It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing - there’s no better place than a Legion hall in which to perform all those venerable big band hits of WW II.

This year I wore an English poppy that my brother Terry picked up last week in Britain while attending the funeral of our cousin Philip.  Unlike our brilliant red plastic copies of the ancient plants, English poppies are made from a light red paper backed with a green leaf. 

One of my fetishes following Remembrance Day is the un-boxing of our Christmas decorations. Getting a jump-start on the season has always been driven by the musical commitments I have in December. I fear if I wait I won’t have time to trim the house. Besides, brightening up the lengthening November darkness makes my pre-emptive strike worthwhile.  Actually I assembled our artificial tree on Nov 10^th , albeit without the light strings attached. This morning I plan to affix the lights and by this evening our living room will be awash in a blaze of colour. 

PHOTO 1: Unlike our brilliant red plastic poppy, English copies of the ancient plants are made from light-weight red paper backed with a green leaf.

PHOTO 2: Before a gymnasium was built at Eric Dunn Junior Secondary School (now Ecole E.J. Dunn Middle School), the school’s Remembrance Day ceremonies took place at First United Church in Port Alberni.  Some blog readers may recognize themselves. 

PHOTO 3: The Arrowsmith Big Band performs at the Remembrance Day dance held annually at the Canadian Legion Hall in Parksville.