Gordon takes trusty music stand and cornet into retirement
Gordon takes trusty music stand and cornet into retirement
13 December 2021
Gordon Nowell, 93, has retired after 75 years of banding. He is pictured at left playing with the Hervey Bay Corps band and on the right in his younger days.
Ninety-three-year-old Salvationist Gordon Nowell has retired after 75 years of banding, still using the music stand his brass teacher sold him when he was taught to play an instrument.
The music stand that 93-year-old retired bandsman Gordon Nowell used for all the 75 years of his banding with The Salvation Army in Queensland.
Not only that, but he also played his last notes on the first cornet he bought for £64 in 1946 – to the tune of ‘Gordon’ (My Jesus I Love Thee), which is number 501 in the latest Army band tune book.
Gordon reached the 75-year milestone on 2 June. The following Sunday, during the worship service at Hervey Bay, he officially retired from banding. “It’s been a wonderful experience,” he said.
A retired welder, Gordon grew up in a family of Brethren and wasn’t introduced to brass banding until he linked with The Salvation Army in Bundaberg, Queensland, at the age of 17. A year later, he picked up his first brass instrument.
Deputy bandmaster Bill Bust taught him to play and was the person who sold him the music stand. “I had to have a music stand to put my music on, and he [Bill] said, ‘I’ll sell you this one’, and he sold it to me for 12 shillings and sixpence, and I’ve still got it today,” Gordon said.
It was a plain steel stand, but Gordon said he paid to have it chrome-plated. “It has needed the odd modification here and there, but it’s served me at Bundaberg, West End, Holland Park [Mount Gravatt] and Hervey Bay [all in the Queensland Division] all these years,” he said.
Gordon bought his first cornet from Carnegie Bros music shop in Brisbane for £64. That cornet, a Boosey and Hawkes Imperial, served him well until his son, Douglas, travelled to England in 1978 for the International Congress “and came home with a brand new cornet for me”. “I’ve still got that one, too, but the original one is much easier to play,” admitted Gordon, who has mostly played solo cornet throughout his life.
The early days
Gordon most likely would not have joined The Salvation Army had he not met Evelyn Nicolson in the early 1940s.
At 17, he had a milk run and would deliver to the bakery where 19-year-old Evelyn worked behind the counter. They officially became an item on15 August 1945. It was VP Day [Victory in the Pacific], and Gordon escorted Evelyn home after celebrations in the centre of Bundaberg.
Evelyn took Gordon along to various Salvation Army services and activities, and it was here that he heard an Army brass band up close for the first time.
Bill Bust, a baker, took the young Gordon under his wing. While preparing the dough for the next day’s bread, he would take the budding cornet player for a 90-minute lesson.
Gordon was enrolled as a senior soldier at Bundaberg Corps in June 1946. “A Sunday morning about a quarter to 12 it was,” he recalled.
Gordon said the hymn ‘Abide With Me’ was the first tune he learnt but that “the old tunes bring a lot of memories back”. ‘It Is Well With My Soul’ is his favourite. And, of course, he can’t go past the tune ‘Gordon’.
Now that he does not need to attend rehearsals each Wednesday night, what are his plans? “To sit here and watch TV,” Gordon said before Evelyn interrupted: “Stop home with his wife, which is a change!” She also said it would be nice to finally have her husband sit with her in church.
Every couple of days, though, Gordon gets out his cornet, music, and stand, sits on the end of the bed and “has a blow”. “I’ve got to keep my lip in,” he quipped.
Comments
Cherish the 70+ years of fellowship with this family.. enjoy 'retirement'...
As our Lord would say. " well done Gods good and faithfull servent".