TOOTLING ALONG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 5, 28 July 1939, Page 15

TOOTLING ALONG

An Echo From The Past

N a musical dictionary the post horn is described as "a straight oblong-coiled brass instrument, with no valves or other means of producing any notes but those of the harmonic series." We are also informed that "its name comes from its old-time use by the guards of the mail coaches to announce their arrival in the villages and towns on their routes." That is what the gentleman in the picture is doing. With one of those anachronistic gestures of which people in England seem fond, a coach-and-four drove to Hampton Court recently, complete with coachman and cheerful fanfare of post horn. Perhaps it is true that things are not what they used to be. For England’s coachmen must have been a virile breed, with mighty lungs capable of functioning in all weathers as they tooted merriiy through the quiet countryside. Most people would probably die of apoplexy before they produced even a grunt out of a post horn, and the instrument presents difficulties for even an accomplished player of a wind instrument. So we should all listen with interest, if not with awe, when Lieutenant R. J. Simpson plays a solo on a post

horn five feet in length at the concert of the Port Nicholson Silver Band, from 2YA, Wellington, on Sunday, July 30. The band itself, under its conductor, J. J. Drew, will present some interesting items. Some will remember that this was the first

band ever to be broadcast to the public in New Zealand; and although it has,had its desperate moments (as once, when all its instruments were seized by bailiffs). it has always survived. It has several times been champion band of the Dominion, and has been the envy of all other bands for its success in obtaining help from famous visiting artists.