Gervase Dodd (FS 56-61) has sent in the following
update:
“I was particularly interested in the previous
Bulletin to see Bill Greetham's note about the Last Post. I am not
sure whether I took over directly from him, or whether Chris Ward
(G 55-60), who like me was a trumpeter in the Corps band, did a spell,
but in any event I filled the 10 o'clock slot for at least a couple
of years until I left in 1961, playing from the War Memorial outside
the library. So the question now is how long the tradition lasted
after 1961? I have often thought how the village residents must have
relished the quiet of the school holidays, not least because they
were spared the nightly bugle call!
After leaving St Bees I followed Chris Ward to Reading University,
where we trumpeted together occasionally. After Reading I joined the
steel industry at what was then John Summers & Sons on Deeside
near Chester. After the company was nationalised, de-nationalised
(when did this become "privatised", I wonder?) and re-nationalised
in the space of a few years, I left to join Greenall Whitley, the
Warrington-based brewers and pub operators, as a founder member of
their personnel department. During my 29 years with Greenalls, the
company grew until it was briefly in the FTSE 100 and then shrank
again - all those acquisitions, closures and disposals were grist
to the mill of an HR specialist! - and after ten years as Director
of Group Personnel Services I retired in 2002. Since then I have been
occupied with gardening and building maintenance, country sports,
voluntary work for the NSPCC, and our local village hall. I have also
seen J.V.M.Green several times during his occasional visits from Australia.”