Introduction:

Dave Barker played the cornet extremely well, well enough to be considered the best brass band cornetist in Melbourne during his prime and also mix it with best in the world back in Mother England. He was cared for but not really molly-coddled by his wonderful parents Dick and Mary and received his early training from the man who, in his day, was considered to be the premier principal cornet in British Brass Band Heartland, Bernard Bygrave.
On a personal level Dave is as close to myself and Adrienne as anyone is likely to be. They say that blood is thicker than water but valve oil must run a close second! The relationship between us is further proof that brass banding is as much about people as it is about music.
A cheery disposition and a bright mind make Dave a great bloke to be around. Combine these great qualities with a generous helping of various social lubricants and you end up with memories that makes us cackle to this day!
Please enjoy the witty words of David Arthur Barker, his story is complete as he tells it and well worth reading.

Geoff Meikle
11/08/2024.

 
Name: David Barker
DOB:   1962. Carshalton, Surrey, England
Parents names: Arthur (Dick) Barker and Mary Anne Barker
Instrument:  B flat cornet

It’ll be something that stays with me forever; me, thrusting my hand up in the air when our music teacher, Mrs. Lake, asked if any of us wanted to learn trumpet or trombone. The reason was that it was March, and there was a nasty nip in the air, and our class had an outdoor PE lesson playing netball! Dressed in nothing more than shorts, T-shirt, and plimsolls, I was positively freezing. So, up my hand went, and three of us, David Mead, Trevor Lewis, and I were marched off to a (warm) room where we were told to wait for the teacher. This was Mr. Dennis and, over the next several weeks, he taught me the basics of how to play trumpet. Before long, I was playing in the school orchestra.

We emigrated to South Australia in 1975 after I had been playing for just over a year, and not having a group of like-minded people to play with, I put the trumpet away. That was until one day when my father, who had been asking around, told me of a brass band at Para Hills that I might enjoy. Rehearsals were on Monday and Friday and, after some initial trepidation, I couldn’t wait for the next one to roll around. I was given a uniform and told that the band had a job to do on the Saturday afternoon, and could I help out. It was the first playout I was ever involved with. So, my father drove me to Springfield in Adelaide’s leafy south east (actually, he drove everywhere!), to do the job. The trouble was, I had no music. Phillip Matthews, the band’s principal cornet at the time, just said “well, it’s in C major, so just play a C major scale – you’ll be alright”. I decided to play nothing, for the obvious reasons.

It was about then that I met one of the greatest influences on my development as a cornet player. His name was Bernard Bygrave and he taught me from 1977 until 1982. Bernard was the principal cornet of Black Dyke, Crossley’s Carpet Works, Ferodo Works, and Brighouse and Rastrick bands, and came to Australia only a few years before we did.

After a few years I decided to register with the newly formed Elizabeth City Band. So, I duly signed on the dotted line and that was it – registered! Except that I didn’t know you (or rather, I) had to resign from Para Hills in order to do it; it being in direct contravention of the rules to be registered with two bands simultaneously. I entered an agonising period now. What would I do? Would I say goodbye to Para Hills, who had given me such joy and fulfilment, or should I tell Bernard and all that that would entail. After all, he was conducting this new band so, if anything, I figured an extra cornet lesson a week wouldn’t go astray. Ultimately, that’s what did it, and I decided to leave Para Hills and embark on a new journey.

I spent nine, fun filled years at the Elizabeth City Band, and we went to our first Nationals, in B grade, in Mount Gambier, in 1980. It was a huge eye-opener, especially owing to the fact that a band from New Zealand was there; the Skellerup Woolston Band from Christchurch. Our own build up to the contest was dealt a massive blow, however, when our solo horn player had run off somewhere a few weeks prior. This meant that our Soprano player, Geoff Snelling, had to move onto solo horn to fill the gap. This left a gap on soprano instead, so Bernard suggested that I put the soprano parts at certain point of the music. It was a baptism of fire for me personally, because the soprano was an octave above the solo cornets at some points, and I was struggling to play parts that went to a top D. We didn’t win.

In 1983, I was diagnosed with a major bowel condition which led to the whole thing being removed. It left me with a 30-centimetre-long scar along my lower abdomen, and an ileostomy; a bag, in other words, just below the belt line. I was 21, and all I could think of was ‘will I still be able to play cornet?’ Eight days after the operation, on Christmas Eve, I was told to put a dressing gown on, hop into wheelchair, and sit back because ‘we are going to go outside’, so a work colleague said. When we finally got there, there were more of my friends from work, and the entire Elizabeth City Band all set up and ready to play! And play they did. It was sensational, and I remember my great friend Geoff Meikle standing up to play ‘Solitaire’. (He ended the piece on a high e-flat; a note that I could only dream of hitting!) It was a great day all round, and one that will live with me always.  

The long recovery was commenced in February and I spent a bit of time on 2nd cornet just to help with keeping the chops in. After a while I was back on top chair and kept on blowing as if nothing had happened. Then, in July, I was fortunate to win the SA Champion of Champions in 1984, only about seven months after I was under the knife in Calvary hospital.

1983 saw the birth of The Oakbeam Brass Quintet comprising of Geoff and Adrienne Meikle, Geoff Snelling, Pat Brady (later to be replaced by Kathy Cameron), and myself. It was the only time I ever played with a small ensemble and I soon became aware of how tired you could get by attempting to hold down 20% of the music. It was great fun though. All five of us smoked at the time, and we would routinely have a ‘fag break’ whenever we saw fit. The rehearsals were held in a spare room which was located outside at Geoff and Rita Snelling’s place. We’d have a blow, interspersed with several of the aforementioned fag breaks, and, at the end of the night, we’d head indoors where Rita would brew up a pot of tea and have some biscuits at the ready. Happy days!

In 1986 I left Elizabeth to make the move interstate to join the Hawthorn City Band. There, I met Tom Paulin (former principal cornet of Grimethorpe Colliery), Arthur Withers (former principal cornet of the Melbourne Staff Band), and the conductor, Ken MacDonald (former 2nd man at Black Dyke). These three gentlemen were to continue the influence that Bernard Bygrave had started. Playing at Hawthorn was marvellous, and I was immediately attracted to getting three free cornet lessons twice a week! Winning contests at Ballarat, Tanunda, and in Launceston at the Nationals of 1987, were all part of the sheer joy I felt during my time there. It was magical!

But fate played another cruel trick on me and I had to return to Adelaide in 1989 after just over two and a half years. My mother had suffered a stroke and the prognosis wasn’t good. I moved back in with my father and, naturally, went back to Elizabeth where I stayed for about three years. I left Elizabeth and went to Kensington and Norwood to sit next to my old friend Kevin Joughin. Some happy times were to be had at K&N, none more so than in 1992 when we won the National Championship.

I went back to University in 1994 to study Winemaking, and decided to expand my horizons a little by taking up the conductorship of the Campbelltown Band in 1996. We were in C grade for the one and only contest I was there for. We got placed second in a very strong field, with Enfield City winning, overall, by five points. That might sound a lot, but when you consider that a total of 700 points made each bands score, it doesn’t sound like much at all.

My time at Kensington and Norwood came to an end in 1998 when I started work at the Scarpantoni Winery. I was newly married in 1999 and my wife, Marie, and I set off for pastures new in Terrigal, NSW. During this time, my cornet failed to see the light of day. I moved to Melbourne in July 1999, and some three years of not playing had elapsed before the secretary of the Hawthorn Band unexpectedly called me and invited me along for a blow.  

It was like I had never left. Tom Paulin, the former principal cornet I had played second man to some 12 years before, was now conducting, and a new era began as I started to make music with the new crew at Hawthorn. But during 2003, I left Hawthorn to go to England for a short while, to play with the Leyland Band. It was contest season and I arrived just in time for rehearsals for the British Open. The National Finals at The Royal Albert Hall, as well as ‘Brass In Concert’ competition, were all contests that I was fortunate enough to play in. That, and a concert every two weeks really kept the lips in form!

I returned to Australia after about six months, and went back to Hawthorn, who were all amazed at how loud my playing had become! It didn’t occur to me. ‘I’m just playing normally’, I said.

A change of conductors in 2005 saw a chap take charge who liked the sound of his own voice so much so that he spoke to the band than for longer than we actually played. It was like he was delivering lectures and, occasionally, we wouldn’t even get our instruments out of their cases. He reorganised the band in such a way that the cornets were standing along the back of the band. He remarked, when we wanted to adopt the more conventional seating arrangements, ‘It’s like going to get your hair cut at a different barber; you still come out looking the same!’. “That’s all very well’, I thought, ‘but you wouldn’t wear a purple mohawk to you sister’s wedding!’ It was 2008, and needless to say, I left Hawthorn, discouraged by what they had become, and went to Preston. They were struggling a bit, but I felt I ought to help ought their conductor, a former principal cornet and great friend, Jason Mears.

It didn’t last long. Preston were really struggling, and no amount of good that I could do was going to make any difference to the fact that they had come last in A grade at that year’s Nationals. I told Jason of my decision to leave. To my astonishment, he said the same thing; that he was going to go as well.

It was during this time that I was lucky enough to become a solo cornet with the National Australia Brass run by Professor David King. For nine wonderful years we journeyed to Melbourne to make the best quality of music I’ve ever made, including Leyland! This was an invitation band made up of, as David saw it, the best players from all over Australia. The principal cornet was Paula Russell, another pom who played Repiano at the Yorkshire Building Society Band. What a player! There was nothing she couldn’t play, and I looked up to her in a very big way.

Also I went to the Kew Band Melbourne in 2008 under the direction of Steve Bastable. He was a Birmingham man by birth and had played solo cornet at Black Dyke. He put me straight in on top chair where ‘Montage’ was the piece we were going to play at Ballarat in about two months. Mind you, the pressure he applied, particularly to the committee, for everyone to be at rehearsals was monumental. Our commitment was called into question but, despite being a fine conductor, it was hell. A rumour was spreading around the traps that the reason he left Dyke was he couldn’t stomach the lack of commitment from the people in the band!

So, Steve left Kew and Mark Ford took over, again, as musical director. The pressure that was applied relentlessly to rehearsals, was gone, and the Kew Band seemed to be where I wanted to be. A few years of, personally, tough missions ensued, and, in 2009, Mark presented me with a solo called ‘Flight’ by Philip Wilby. Mark said ‘we’re doing this at the FABB contest, and the solo is yours’. I can tell you it was one heck of a tough piece, but when you consider it was written for Mark Walters, the flugel player from Grimethorpe, well, my job didn’t seem that difficult after all.

The following year, 2010, the band again performed a monstrously tough solo, but at my request. I had asked if it were possible to play the ‘Concerto for Cornet and Brass Band’ by Ernest Tomlinson. This piece is in three movements, and each is diabolically hard. I had been rehearsing it, on and off, for two years and in November 2010, at the Hawthorn Town Hall, I gave the Australian premiere performance of the work. I should say ‘in its original form’ because Paula Russell, from Queensland, had performed it with piano a while earlier. Anyway, it went brilliantly well and the audience were really appreciative. The performance of that piece remains one of the highlights of my career.

Another occurred when the KBM won the A grade National in 2011 in Adelaide; the culmination of a tireless MD, and a committed, talented band. That year, we had the best front row of any band I’ve been involved with consisting of Sean Priest, Colin Lord, and John Sader.

The dropping of the Hawthorn Band to B grade meant that the time was right for a merger with Kew, and, given that they’re right next door to each other as suburbs of Melbourne, a merger is what happened. (Boroondara Band are also very close by, so you had three top grade bands in the one council area!)

The merged band is now called Glenferrie Brass and it would be the last band I ever played with. I suffered a stroke in January 2018 which saw my cornet playing days come to a shattering halt. But that was the least of my concerns. I had to concentrate on recovering from it first, and, fingers crossed, I’m still here!

In essence, I miss playing cornet. I miss it terribly, but no amount of a disciplined fightback is going to see me playing again. Strokes, at least the kind of one I had, aren’t responsive to that. But I can look back on my career as a cornet player with an immense amount of tremendously fond memories. I have made some great, lifelong friends along the way, and you can’t get much better than that.
David Barker, 2024

Flight (Philip Wilby) Soloist: David Barker with Kew Band Melbourne (Mark Ford) 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgCtimWJmGk