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The Roy Johnston Mentor & Life Coach Award
CHAPTER 3
Roy Johnston
“I was the star trumpet player in the original Kitsie Boys’ band. By the time I left the band in 1935, I had 16 medals for solo and quartet playing. In 1931, I played the fluegal horn solo in the band’s test piece at the Toronto Exposition, where the band took first place. I was also on the 1933 trip to Chicago and the 1934 trip to England.”
“How did you get into the Kits band?”
My teacher got me tickets to go and see them down at the Denman arena near Stanley Park, where all the hockey games were played. I played in the National Juvenile Band. They were run by a fellow named Jack Parle. He looked after the brass and William Hoskins Sara, he looked after the reeds and taught all the drummers. Good musicians came out of there. I still play with two or three, at senior citizens homes. Dave Dutton plays trombone. I was twelve on my birthday, February 17, 1927.
In his professional bands, in later years, he always had me sit on the end of the trumpet section. He knew, if he got into any trouble, I would be able to get him out of it. I told him, “I don’t want to play any solos anymore!” During the war, I
had some teeth out. When I got home, I went to the dentist and had the rest taken out. It took me a year and a half before I was able to play again.
Before I went into the Navy, I played a year with the symphony. Those were the days when the symphonies were made up of all local people. It hadn’t got to the point yet where they were drawing people from all over the world. They had good musicians though.”
“Do you remember the first time you met Mr. D?”
“I can remember almost everything that went on that day, I was scared to death. I would have been fourteen, in 1929. I didn’t know anything about him and I had never heard of the band. In those days, we were in the little house at the back of General Gordon School. He was just across the fence. We sat on benches, five kids to a bench. We had lots of room, six or seven, your arms got closer to you. He said, “Sit there on the first chair.”
Don Endicott sat next to me that first night. No one ever sat between us, up until the day we both left. Don is a terrific guy. He contracted polio. Oh, before we started, Mr. D sat beside me. He asked me to move over. He wanted to talk to me. He said,
“How long have you been in the National Juvenile Band? How long have you been taking lessons? What do you think about their band?”
I told him I was quitting. I had heard them somewhere and they really hadn’t done such a good job. So, I said,
“Mr. Delamont, I heard them the other day and I thought they sounded like the devil.” He said,
“Don’t you ever talk like that in here again. Nobody swears in this place.”
That was swearing to him, so I got beat down before I even played a note. I’d done something wrong right away. I never did it again. He had two rehearsals a week, I only went to one. Just after I joined, Jack Allen joined. I never knew who he was because he came on the night I couldn’t come down. So, Don Endicott says to me,
“You should try and get down and hear this terrific clarinet player.” My teacher was the bandmaster of the 29th Battalion band. He had been the leader of the Seaforth Highlander band in World War I. One Saturday, he asked me to come down on Sunday, to help him out in a church parade. We met at the Seaforth Armories and marched over to Christ Church Cathedral. He presented the new colors to the church that were to be laid behind the alter. We all came back to the Armory. It was then that I was introduced to Jack Allen. His teacher had brought him down. Don’t think I heard his name. He said,
“Oh, you’re the hot shot trumpet player that just joined the Kitsilano Boys’ Band.” I said,
“Are you that terrific clarinet player that I’ve been hearing about?”
We had both been standing there, not touching a drop of beer. We both kept saying,
“No thanks!” I didn’t want him to know I drank and he didn’t want me to know he drank. His mother and my mother use to make great wine. Beer was nothing to me. Finally, Jack said,
“Roy, I don’t care what you say to Mr. Delamont. I’m going to have a drink of beer.” I said, “You son of a gun, I’ve been wanting a beer like you wouldn’t believe.” He said, “I thought you would tell Mr. Delamont!” I said, “Well, I thought the same thing.” So, we tried to catch up! Eventually, we staggered over to Hastings Street. He had to catch the number fourteen out to Boundary Road and then catch the two-door trolley, that use to run out to the Heights. I had to go down to Carroll Street and get the Interurban to McKay. So, that was the first time we met.
In England, we found out we could buy a Jill bottle of Scotch, for two and six. It was about the size of a medicine bottle. We always had one of these. After a concert was over, we would sneak off and have a swig.
I use to chum around a lot on the trips with Jack Habkirk, the bassoon player. He was an original, big man. He was brought up in a Salvation Army family. He lived out in the Kerrisdale area. I used to go to his house occasionally. His mother was the first woman I ever saw who I thought wore a wig. It used to be so neat, first thing in the morning. They were a very nice family. His father was a terrific man. He was a little spoiled and always ready to play pranks.
Jack and I stayed with my grandmother and grandfather in England. We snuck out to a pub one night. When we came back, they were all in bed. We had to hunt for the light switch but couldn’t find it. We had forgotten that they had gas, not electricity. We needed candles for the upstairs but couldn’t find them either. It’s a wonder we didn’t wake them up. We couldn’t find the stairs, so we got undressed in the dark. That was where my mother met my dad. We were staying with his father and stepmother. They had a couple of aunts there as well. When I went back in the war, I tried to visit my mother’s family but I couldn’t find them. My uncle Charlie still lived at home with my grandad. He was a teacher.”
“Were pubs a big deal on the 1934 trip?”
“No, not really, pubs were just a novelty. We didn’t go to very many. We didn’t really have any money. The only money we had was what we were given by our parents. Remember it was the depression and things were tough.
We got fed all right. Whenever we played, we got paid, so that covered expenses. One time we went to Shanklin for a day concert. We had nothing else to do for the rest of the week. Turns out they didn’t know what we were like. They thought we were just a bunch of kids from the colonies. They weren’t going to hire us for more than a day until they found out what we were able to do. It was on an August bank holiday. The accommodation was all sold out. After we played, we were asked by our agents to stay for a week. Mr. D said,
“Sure, we will stay!”
The only problem was, where would we stay? So, they rustled up a church that would take us. They got a mattress for every one of us and blankets.
The church had a big stone wall around it. The gate was locked at a certain time each night. Mickey Crawford didn’t make it back on time one night. We were watching for him. We got him over the wall and pulled him up.
We stayed in a hostel only once in 1934. That was in Plymouth. We usually stayed in a bed and breakfast. When we landed in Liverpool, we got on a train, right on the dock and went right to Manchester. We were taken to a row of houses that were all attached (Foley Commercial Hotel). They had knocked the wall down between them all, so you could walk down a corridor from one to another. That’s where we stayed. I remember Jack Allen, Jack Habkirk and I had a room upstairs. We showered but we didn’t know what to do with the water. It wasn’t running water, so we opened the window and threw it out into the backyard. We competed there in the West of England Festival in Bugle. The first day we arrived, we all got together and the woman of the house said to Mr. D,
“What time do you want to get knocked up?” The more she talked the funnier it got. Then she said, “The knocker-up man will be around at eight in the morning!”
The only bath in the house we were in was full of coal.”
“Where did Mr. D stay?”
“He stayed with us, in the same place. In Edinburgh, we were billeted all over town. Some of us were in Dunfermline. In Dunfermline, Mr. D decided he was going to go around to all the billets and see how we were all doing. He walked into one place. Doug Harkness came up a few years ago from California. We had lunch with him. Gordy McCullough, myself, and Hector MacKay. Doug lives south of San Francisco and is a psychology professor at Berkeley. Anyway, Mr. D walked into the billet where Doug was staying in Dunfermline. The room was full of smoke and dirty glasses were all over the place. Doug said,
“I got quite a shock when I looked in the direction of the door and Mr. D walked in. He didn’t say anything. He just
stopped and stood there and looked. None of us said anything either. We were all smoking. He looked at each of us individually. Finally, he said,
“Boys, you have just broken my heart.” Then he turned around and walked out. They never heard anything more about it. He never mentioned it or reprimanded them. They figured, what he did meant more than if he had ranted and raved about it.
Don Endicott was the oldest of our group. Jack Allen was the youngest. I played with Dal for a number of years at the BC Lion’s football games.
My dad worked for BC Electric. He died at sixty-four. He never got to enjoy his retirement, so I decided that I would retire at sixty-five. I still play my trumpet but Dal is the same as Mr. D. He’ll never retire.
A fellow came to our school and advised us to take bookkeeping, typing, and shorthand, that sort of thing. It was a two-year course. In 1929 the crash came. I left school in 1930. I got a job in Spencer’s Department Store at seven dollars per week. It usually wasn’t seven dollars though. When Mr. Delamont heard I was working at Spencer’s, he said, “Instead of going all the way home, why don’t you come and have dinner at our house?”
So, I did, right up until I left the band at Christmas 1934. I was quite happy to leave school. I thought I was going to be a professional musician. I soon realized though, it wasn’t for me. I could see what my teacher was doing and what other people had to do to get jobs. They were stabbing people in the back to get jobs. That sort of thing still goes on today. I joined the musicians union in 1935. That was after
my older brother died. He was a violinist and teacher. He played all sports. He injured his back and it developed into a Tuberculosis Spine. All the time I was at Spencer’s.
When I went to England, I got time off. They put Johnny Arnott into my job at Spencer’s. When I got back from England, they wanted to keep him. So, they said to me,
“We’re going to find you another job.”
I wound up working all over the store. After Christmas, my mother came in to wake me to go to work. I just lay there. She came in three times. I looked at her and said,
“I’m not going to go back to that place again.”
And I didn’t! My brother died in February 1935. I was more help to my mother at home anyway. In April, I joined the musicians union. In June, I was on my way to the Orient, on the Empress of Canada, where I stayed for two years. The depression lingered on through the thirties. As I said, my dad worked for BC Electric. In those days, policemen, firemen, and street car men, all made the same amount of money. I tried to get into the Fire Department. I played in the Fireman’s band. One day the conductor said,
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to the chief. We will see if he can get you into the job.” I had a doctor’s exam and an interview. He said to me,
“We’ll see if we can get you a job.”
Just as I was going out of the door, he said,
“I forgot to ask you, are you married?” I said,
“No!” He said,
“I’m sorry Roy. I can’t hire you.”
During the Depression, the city wouldn’t hire anyone who was single. They were only hiring married men, so they
could look after their families. So, I didn’t get on with the Fire Department.
The theatre that my music teacher used to work at, had a tunnel underneath, that led to the Castle Hotel. When the first show was over, they would all go over to the Castle and sit there until it was time to go back for the second show. My teacher could drink twenty glasses between shows and still play a good show. That’s where all his money went. My dad would meet Mickey once a month, and pay him for my lessons, for the four Saturdays. He met him in the Castle Hotel. By the time my dad left Mickey, all the money he had given Mickey had been spent. He never owned a home. He always lived in a rental place. He ended up on welfare, in a city-owned home out by Fourth and Alma. He lived there until he went into the hospital, where his legs were amputated and he died. I heard so many stories about the escapades of ‘Mickey Hunt!’ That was the way they all were. You wouldn’t think one man would do so much damage to his body. But he did. Some musicians prospered.
Mr. D prospered by buying houses. He spent his time going around picking up rent cheques from the different houses that he owned. He put it all into annuities. He used to talk to me about his finances. One day he came out and sat down and said,
“You know Roy, when I’m forty-five, I’ll be able to retire. I’ll have a steady income coming in. I’m buying annuities!”
So that was another source of income. Most musicians only have one source of income. That was the difference between him and most other musicians of his day.
Apparently, he bought small apartments up until 1946 and then developed a ‘stock portfolio.’ I know one thing he did was buy second mortgages. He gave me the name of the woman who used to look after mortgages for him; Mrs. MacDonald. He said,
“She phoned me up one day. I’ve got a second mortgage I think you’ll be interested in.”
Interest is pretty good on those. That’s what he was doing after he sold off all his real estate. That was the secret of his success. When his job was over, he went home.
Calvin Winters lived on the south side of town. We would see him once a week. He would come down in time for the rehearsal. We would never see him the rest of the week. We wondered where he went the rest of the time. Eventually, he went belly up. He drank!
I remember when I had dinner with him at his house. After dinner, Mrs. Delamont would bring out a pie. She cut it in half. Mr. D had half. The rest of us, Vera, Gordon, herself and me, split the other half. She had another pie waiting, if we wanted more. I told him once when he told us he had diabetes years later,
“You know why you have it?” He liked everything sweet.
I remember when he had his heart attack in 1971. I heard it on the radio. I phoned around to find out what hospital he was in. It was St. Paul’s. Right across from where I was working. I went over and saw him. We were playing school concerts then. I was Chairman of the trust funds. I met Mrs. Borsa. She was sitting by his bed holding his hand. When he had his heart attack, he phoned Mrs. Borsa. If he had called an ambulance, he would have gotten to the hospital quicker
but I guess he didn’t think he was too bad. Before I left D I said,
“You have a boat to play out this week and a school concert coming up. What are you going to do about it?” He said.
“I don’t know. Come back tomorrow and I will tell you.” So I went back the next day. Mrs. Borsa was there. I said, “Have you decided what you are going to do about the boat and school concerts?” He said, “Ya, you’re going to do it! I said,
“That’s fine. I can handle it but the school concert, I will need more time to prepare.” He said,
“Do what you want. Have them put it off if you want.”
I had them put it off until June. Not long after that Ken Sotvedt brought a group of boys down and they played, “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” outside on the lawn. That seemed to perk him up. So, he got out of the hospital and went and stayed with Mrs. Borsa.
I came over to Mrs. Borsa’s house. Arthur answered the door in his dressing gown. We went into the kitchen and he had all the music out for the boat concerts. I said,
“I am more interested in seeing the music for the school concerts.” He said,
“Don’t tell Mrs. Borsa but I’m going to do that one,” I said,
“Okay, if you think you are up to it.” When the school concert came along, when I got out there, he was sitting on the stage in a high swivel chair that he had gotten from the library, like a bar stool. The music was all out, and the seats were set up, I couldn’t believe it! I hired all the guys but I didn’t tell them Mr. D was going to conduct. So, Ozzie McCoomb
RIGHT: Pre-1928 photo of Roy before he joined the Kitsilano Boys’ Band
BELOW: 1930 Roy with trumpet, middle left, seated, at Burnaby South High School’s annual concert
1937 Roy on board The Empress of Canada, on the way to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan
FAR RIGHT: c1960 In a backyard Kenny Bucholl, Roy, Eric Muir, Doug Luff snare drum, Jock McCluskey
bass drum. RIGHT: Roy as a Shriner.
BELOW: 1970 Roy (top left) in Navy band on a trip back East.
came in. He played bassoon in the symphony. Never played in Kits but he played in Mr. D’s professional band. When he saw Mr. D, he said,
“What the hell are you doing here Arthur?” Mr. D said, “Oz when I go, this is where I want to be.”
I let everyone know what he had said. For the next few concerts, we all expected him to drop dead at a concert but nothing happened. That’s how we thought he would go. We were always happy when he got through a concert and nothing happened.
When I heard he died at a Masonic Lodge Meeting, I was really happy that that was where it happened. It was appropriate. He was with men, he had known all his life. I ask the guys if they ever thought he would die at a Masonic Lodge Meeting and they all said,
“No, we thought he would die conducting a concert.” I firmly believe he died there because he wanted to die there.
Vera came back from California because she needed an operation. So, she moved in with Arthur. After a year, she was able to have her operation. About a year before Arthur died, Vera moved out into her own apartment at the foot of the Burrard Street Bridge. She started going out with Paul Jagger who had been in the band about that time. He was building a house on Salt Spring Island. Paul use to come and play with Mr. D. Arthur didn’t know that Paul and Vera were seeing each other.
One afternoon down at Kits Beach, Don Radelet and I came up to the stage where Mr. D was talking to Vera. Paul
came up. We were all together. All of a sudden Vera said,
“Well, goodbye.”
She got down from the stage and Paul went with her. Mr. D says,
“Where are they going?” Don says,
“I guess they are both going back to Vera’s apartment.”
That was the first time he knew that they were together. He was so involved with what he was doing that every once in a while he would poke his head up and see what was going on.”
“That’s true!”
“Sometimes he would go to the wrong place. One time he went to the CPR terminal and no one was there, so he had to go to Ballantyne.”
“When did his hair turn white?”
“Gordy McCullough said,
“His hair turned white a lot earlier than he let on. He kept it black for quite a while.”
Not sure if that is true but he went to England one year black and came back white.
I saw Gordon back in Toronto during the war, in 1943. He was selling vacuum cleaners. He had a rough time of it, in the early days. I thought I was going to join the Naden Band in Vancouver. A lot of Kits guys in there, Mickey Crawford, Jack Bensted. I got sent back to Toronto instead. Back then, Gordon was married to Joan Agnew. Gordon came out here when his mother was ill with Alzheimer’s. I saw him and said,
“I guess you’ll be coming out here again.” He said,
“No, I will not come out again, not as long as mother is alive. I couldn’t go through this again. She didn’t even know who I was. She thought I was her brother.” He didn’t come out again until after his mother died.”
“Alzheimer’s is a very bad illness.”
“Yes, I know. I keep asking my doctor about it because I’m starting to forget things.”
“What did he say?”
He said not to worry, he often forgets things as well. It is wicked. Jack Allen has it, don’t know if he knows or not. We never suspected it. It creeps up on you. You can linger on and on.
The Chicago trip was interesting. Harvey Stewart was quite a guy. He could tell stories, and dream up anything to tell. When we were there, ready for the competition, there was another band. One of their fellows ask Harvey,
“Where are you from?”
He told the craziest story you ever heard. He said,
“We live up near the Arctic. We have ice and snow all the time.” The fellow says,
“How did you get here?”
“We started out on dog teams to the nearest railway. We finally got to Vancouver and left the snow behind.” He had them all believing, the world according to Harvey. I listened to Ben Birnie and his big dance band at the Paps Blue Ribbon Beer Hall in Chicago. We could sit there all day. I got his autograph.
We use to marvel at these big bands. Sally Rand was at the Chicago Theatre, doing her fan dance. Saw Sammy Davis Jr. with his father. Gracie Allen. Jack Benny..... Pretty neat!
The leader of Sally Rand’s band was one of the Trinosky Brothers. One of them married into Rogers Sugar, here in Vancouver. They came over from Russia at the time of the revolution.
I remember Mr. D catching me and Wally Oatway, playing each other's instruments. He went up and down the aisles scolding us. It was just before the competition. We won everything we entered. The officials were shocked that we were so good. We got lots of medals.
I am thoroughly convinced that what he did was programmed into his brain by the supreme architect of the universe. Just think about it, how else would a man born in Hereford, England finally end up at the General Gordon School principal’s office one day and present a plan that would change the lives of countless hundreds of boys and girls in Vancouver?”
“He taught girls as well?”
“Yes, I speak of girls as well as boys because Mr. D formed a girl’s band as well which flourished for quite a few years.”
“What did you get most out of your experiences with Mr. D?”
“Oh, I got so much, not only did he pound into us what knowledge he could impart musically but he instilled in us a sense of right and wrong and what the words discipline and deportment meant. Mr. D came into this world I am sure, to keep every one of all his hundreds of boys and girls, on as straight a line as possible. I am sure that he succeeded. Not one that any of us has heard about has gone bad. Maybe a parking ticket or speeding ticket but that’s it.”
“Was he very involved with the Masons?”
“Oh, he was not just content to be a side bencher, he joined three lodges and went through the chairs of one and became the Worshipful Master. He even achieved the distinction of being appointed to the position of District Deputy Grand Master of District 20 of all the Masonic Lodges in BC Mr. D was taking a prominent part in the ceremony of instilling the new Master of Meridian Lodge on a Saturday when he died. Could there be a better way to depart this earth, than working with friends and brother Masons?”
“Why do you think he was so successful Roy?”
“I do not think it was just one thing. I think it was a combination of things. First of all, there was the music. Life is like music. We start with the introduction, continue on through different passages, phrasing and pausing as we continue, sometimes repeating a part by going back to del segno and then finally taking the coda or the finale and ending up with a grandiose finish. Along with all this, a little showmanship has to be added, otherwise, all music could become a bit dull, even to the point of dying.
In the early days of the band's existence 1928 to 1934, the world was in a Depression. Mr. D begged money and food from where ever he could and cheap fares from the CPR to accomplish what he did.” Roy continued.... “There were only eleven boys in 1928. By 1946 when Vancouver awarded him the good citizen medal, he estimated he had taught more than one thousand boys in various bands. He kept a list and tried at every opportunity to bring his boys together. As we grew up he kept in touch... When my wife was ill he called twice a day just to hear me say,
“She’s going to be all right Mr. D.” “Wonderful,” he would reply.”
“I take it he was a religious man but he did not preach to you boys.”
“In order to understand him you have to go back to where it all started in that far-away town of Hereford in Herefordshire, England. Arthur was born into a family that embraced the teachings, preachings, and drum beatings of William Booth, who only twenty-seven years earlier had founded the Salvation Army, a religious and charitable organization along military lines for the evangelizing and social betterment of the poor and degraded.
I would like to believe that from an early age, he was given a drum to beat and that he soon felt the rhythms of the music he was destined to impart to hundreds of boys and girls during his checkered and colorful life. The Salvation Army drum to me is a symbol of this wonderful organization. How many times have you seen pictures and cartoons of the Salvation Army fighting evil with possibly one cornet player and always the inevitable bass drum in the background? That was Arthur!”
“You feel it was through music that he was able to impart the teachings of William Booth to the hundreds of boys and girls that passed through his organization?”
“Yes, I certainly do!”
“Why did the band start touring?”
“Mr. D felt we should see our country and began organizing tours. He would ask local firms to help defray the costs. In the summer of 1931, he took us across the prairies by train. In cities like Edmonton, Calgary, and Moose Jaw,
we gave concerts in the parks. In Winnipeg, the Hudson’s Bay Company hired us to entertain shoppers as they dined. What a grand sight we were, dark blue uniforms, matching forage caps, the red lining of our capes reflecting in our gleaming instruments. The band now played everything from marches to symphonic selections but our signature tune never changed, the Lost Chord. We began piling up the awards. We won the British Columbia and Pacific Northwest championships for four years in a row, as well as the 1931 Canadian Junior Championship. “Woodwinds, Brass and Glory,” a Vancouver writer called us. In 1934 the band went to Britain. Everywhere we went the public demanded encores. The West of England Band Festival yielded three more major prizes. Two years later Mr. D took the boys back to Britain to beat out 30 odd bands from all over the world and take home the coveted Cassell’s Challenge Shield at London’s Crystal Palace. He celebrated by marching the band to the Mansion House for tea with the Lord Mayor.”
“The boys sound like they were little angels. Surely they could not have been perfect all the time?”
“Things went less well on the band's third trip to England, in 1939. In Birkenhead, police ask Mr. D if he knew who had been inserting dimes instead of sixpence pieces into the candy machines. He did of course. Mortified, he assembled his boys, lectured them, then confiscated their Canadian coins. A few days later the boys were skylarking in a boarding house when one climbed into the attic and fell through the ceiling. He was not hurt but the ceiling had to be replaced. Mr. D said,
“That was the result of good clean fun. Buying English toffee with dimes had been downright dishonest.”
“I left the band in 1935 and later during the war I joined the Navy.”
“How old was Mr.D in 1939?”
“In 1939 he would have been 47.”
“What did you do after the war Roy?”
“I worked here in Vancouver and raised a family. I continued to play professionally. I played with Mr. D quite a lot. I remember in 1954 he enlisted 30 of us for the Arthur Delamont Concert Band, to play national anthems at the British Empire Games. One summer he rustled up fifteen of us for a little band that played P&O Liners out from Vancouver. ‘Waltzing Matilda’ for those bound for Australia. ‘California Here I Come’, for those off to San Francisco. Always our finale was an unaccompanied cornet farewell, Mr. D standing with tears in his eyes, playing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ In the late sixties, Mr. D organized an alumni band to give reunion concerts with his still thriving Kitsilano Band. In 1971 at age 79, when he suffered his heart attack, a few of us alumni played one of his favorite songs for him, Elvis Presley’s, ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,’ outside his hospital window. In a couple of months, he was back on the podium as if nothing had happened. Age never dimmed him. While marching us in a parade, he might disappear into the crowd with his cornet to play ‘I Love You Truly’ to an elderly woman or delight a wide-eyed child with ‘Happy Birthday.’ Then he would dash to catch up with us, spurring on the bass drummer from the rear by saying,
“Hit that thing!”
On his 86th birthday in 1978, Mr. D and his Kitsilano Boys’ band celebrated their 50th anniversary with a mammoth concert at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The curtain went up on a stage crammed with nearly 300 Delamont-trained musicians. There were four generations of us, the boys of the 1970s and the boys from years gone by. There were several composers and members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. A priest got time off from a monastery in Mission BC to play the bass drum. A businessman and a psychiatrist came in from San Francisco.
In 1979 with his eyesight failing and suffering from severe diabetes, true to his word he honored a commitment he had made when he had left Great Yarmouth, England in 1939, to return and play the concert he had to cancel due to war being declared.”
“Vera tells me you gave the eulogy at Arthur’s funeral.”
“You have been listening to the eulogy for the past half hour, that and an article I wrote for Readers Digest in 1993.
“You are a budding writer!”
“No not really, just someone I felt strongly about. You know how it is.”
“Yes, I know Roy! I know.”
The haunting sound of the Last Post rang out from Edinburgh Castle as a Canadian war veteran paid a moving tribute to his fellow comrades. Former Navy bandsman Roy Johnston (81) traveled more than 5,000 miles to play at the Scottish War Memorial in memory of his brother-in-law and comrades who were killed during the Second World War. And 62 years on, he used the same cornet to play the Last Post in memory of his brother-in-law George Floyd, who was killed as he flew in a Lancaster bomber on his 66th mission in 1945.
