Many country towns rely on a recording to play the Last Post at Anzac Day services but for the last 40 years, the Wee Waa community has been fortunate to hear Peter Carrett sound the bugle call at commemorative services.
For Mr Carrett, it’s a privilege to stand in front of the War Memorial clocktower and sound the Last Post.
Although he still gets nervous fulfilling the role, “I definitely still get nervous because everybody knows it and if I make a mistake because these old guys know that tune so well, they will tell me ‘you made a slip there, Peter’,” he said to the Wee Waa News at last Tuesday’s Anzac Day service.
Even during COVID-19 restrictions, the talented town bugler stood at the end of his driveway and played to honour those who have served our nation.
“This is a family tradition for me: it goes back to our parents and their involvement from when we were kids,” said Mr Carrett.
“I continue a family tradition dating back to my dad and his brothers playing in the Dubbo band in the late 1940s.
“And my brother served in Iraq in the Navy, in the 1990s.”
Mr Carrett said playing at this year’s Anzac Day service was not only significant because it marked his 40th year as the bugler, but also because he was thinking of his brother throughout the service.
“My brother Phil was diagnosed with leukemia at Easter, and Phil and I have been playing since we were kids.
“He served in the Navy and if he wasn’t currently in intensive care in Brisbane, he would have been playing and marching somewhere.”
Mr Carrett, a former Wee Waa Public School principal, said he still remembers his first Anzac Day service in town.
“The school band had been asked to play some march music, but the band had only been together for nine weeks.
“So, there were all these little kids in Year 8 who had never played in public, they’d been learning for nine weeks and we said, ‘well, we can do it’ and we played a very simple little march.
“We sat in the middle of the main street, and everybody marched passed us at the beginning and at the end.
“At the time, the bugler Wee Waa had was actually a trombonist, and he said to me ‘you should be doing this’ and so from the following year I did the services. He dobbed me in.”
In military tradition, the Last Post is the bugle call that signifies the end of the day’s activities.
It is also sounded at military funerals to indicate that the soldier has gone to his final rest and at commemorative services such as Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.
The Last Post is one of a number of bugle calls in military tradition that mark the phases of the day.
While Reveille signals the start of a soldier’s day, the Last Post signals its end.
According to the Australian War Memorial website, the call is believed to have originally been part of a more elaborate routine, known in the British Army as “tattoo”, that began in the 17th century.
In the evening, a duty officer had to do the rounds of his unit’s position, checking that the sentry posts were manned and rounding up the off-duty soldiers and packing them off to their beds or billets.
The officer would be accompanied by one or more musicians.
The “first post” was sounded when he started his rounds and, as the party went from post to post, a drum was played.
The drum beats told off-duty soldiers it was time to rest; if the soldiers were in a town, the beats told them it was time to leave the pubs.
Another bugle call was sounded when the officer’s party completed its rounds, reaching the “last post” – this signalled that the night sentries were alert at their posts and gave one last warning to the other soldiers.
The Last Post was eventually incorporated into funeral and memorial services as a final farewell, and symbolises the duty of the dead is over and they can rest in peace.
Mr Carrett shared a moving story about sounding the Last Post at the funeral of a Wee Waa serviceman.
“I think it helped in the family’s grief, and it helped in their celebration of their loved one.
“It’s what you do when you’re part of the community.”
Vietnam veteran and Anzac Day service organiser Dennis Lowder praised Mr Carrett at the Wee Waa Anzac Day service with attendees giving Mr Carrett, World War II veteran John Collett and all attending service people a round of applause.
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