Armistice Day.

 

No. 5 Denis Wick trumpet mouthpiece.

Armistice Day is one of the two days every year when I play The Last Post in Nuova Lazio. Today is Armistice Day. This year I haven't had a call asking/reminding me to turn up and play. There could be three reasons why this has happened:

• Whoever is now in charge at the Nuova Lazio RSA forgot to jack up the bugle player or lost my number.
• After all my years of performing this service, I've been replaced by someone's friend who has come to town or someone's daughter or grandson who plays the trumpet and letting me know wasn't given a thought.
• The Nuova Lazio RSA has folded.

I'm beginning to think that it was the last option. I will be turning up at the Nuova Lazio cenotaph. If I am correct about it being the last option, it sort of makes a joke out of the verse they always read before I play The Last Post.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them."

Okay, let's be fair and see who turns up first. One thing is for sure - if I'm the only person there with a trumpet at 11am, I'll be playing the last post. 

I won't be dressed like this, but I will have a shave.

Here's a fictional sentence that won't have been said by anyone involved with the Nuova Lazio RSA...

"Hey, we should let that guy who has been turning up for ten years or more to play The Last Post for us know that he's no longer needed. Even a bugler deserves that courtesy."

I'm off to do a trumpet warm up.

Ciao tutti.