Hats off to all those who help

For this blog I want to doff my hat to everyone who steps in when someone else is in need. Wherever and whenever that might be. I’ve always admired that kind of instinctive generosity and, as it turns out, I’ve now been on the receiving end of it more than once.

It was a strange position to be in back in March when people at the second day of the Area contest kept asking, “Did you know about the bass trombone player whose instrument fell apart moments before going on stage yesterday?”.

It wasn’t the first time my trombone had chosen chaos at a crucial moment. Back in December at a cathedral concert of all places, I opened the case before sound check and immediately knew something was wrong. Both triggers were hanging in the wrong place; the mechanism draped around them like a metallic spiderweb. Thankfully, one of our deps is an instrument repairer, and managed to put it all back together in the dimly lit cathedral, with the most basic of tools before we went on. A Christmas miracle, courtesy of a small screwdriver, years of experience, and a willingness to help.

After that, everything behaved. Weeks passed without a single issue. I tightened the two tiny screws religiously, exactly as instructed, and it seemed that the problem was resolved.

Contest day arrived and the trombone was still behaving. I’d cleaned it, checked it, checked it again, and even checked it in rehearsal for good measure. All fine. We took our obligatory trombone section photo just before going into the registration area and you can see in the photo that my instrument is clearly intact.

Somewhere in the twenty feet between the door and the desk though disaster struck.

I didn’t notice until I did my little nervous pre‑stage test, but the triggers had fallen apart again and interestingly, not even in the same way as before either. The screws were still in place; the mechanism had failed somewhere else entirely. And to make matters worse, a tiny piece, millimetres long and the same colour as the carpet had vanished into a room full of bands opening cases, moving uniforms, and generally creating the perfect environment for losing tiny metal objects forever.

To my own surprise, I was completely calm. Sanguine, even. I was fully prepared to go on stage with no triggers at all: one stuck closed, the other stuck open and which could be held in place albeit uncomfortably. But the people around me it turned out were far less relaxed and immediately started trying to fix the situation. It’s funny, I barely registered what was happening around me, so focused was I on what I needed to remember to do, and not do, once on stage.

But that’s when the real community spirit of banding showed itself.

The band coming off stage two before us didn’t hesitate. Their bass trombone player offered me their instrument. No fuss, no questions, just pure sportsmanship. A legend. Afterwards they told me that the same thing had happened to their band's tuba player a couple of years earlier, and another band had stepped in to help them. They’d made a promise that day that if they were ever in a position to return the favour, they would. And they did. Right when I needed it. I promised myself in that moment that I’d do exactly the same for someone else one day.

So, I walked on stage with a loan bone that I hadn’t tuned, hadn’t tested, and barely had time to hold properly. All I could do was remember my days as a Scout and do my best.

And we only went and won the flipping thing.