Brass band takes some beating

By Melissa Meehan
IT MIGHT have taken them 10 years and a borrowed bass drum beater, but Kooweerup’s marching band has hit the mark.
The town’s secondary college band was finally named Best Band at the 2010 Anzac Day march after a decade of taking part in the march.
The band was in good company too, topping second-placed Presbyterian Ladies College and third-placed Scotch College.
Each year the college leads the 39th Battalion, which defended Australia on the Kokoda Track in World War II, in the Melbourne Anzac Parade.
College music director Claudia Barker is still recovering after finding out the band won the award with a borrowed drum from Caulfield South Primary School.
“We arrived on the bus and the kids realised they forgotten to pack the bass drum beater but they didn’t tell me and somehow were able to borrow one from another band,” she said. “Luckily they didn’t tell me, I would have been frantic.”
She said she was very proud of the band, which consists of kids from Grade 4 to Year 12. “They practise early mornings, in the cold, frost and fog,” she said. “But it has all been worth it.”
Band captains Daniel Bonney and Allison Gontier accepted the award at Anzac House last week. “We don’t march for the competition, we march in honour of our fallen soldiers,” Ms Gontier said.
Allan ‘kanga’ Moore, former president of the 39th Battalion, said that the rousing march “Sussex by the Sea” brought back memories of training days at the Darley Training Camp in 1941.