A brass band half full of ladies

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On Sunday, we caught the train into the centre of Perth, our capital, to attend a brass band concert at Government House Ballroom. We parked the car at the train station which is easy enough on a Sunday. Monday to Friday the carpark is full to overflowing and it’s hopeless trying to park there on weekdays. The train takes 20 minutes to get to Perth and the track runs up the middle of the freeway. For some reason it feels very satisfying to streak past all the poor drivers battling traffic on the roads. Government House is a two-storey ‘gentlemen’s mansion’. The building and grounds are heritage-listed and opened regularly to the public. The ballroom was filled to capacity and we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. The guest of honour was Steve Mead, a British virtuoso of the euphonium, which is one of the larger brass instruments but not as large as a tuba. The Perth City Brass Band played up to the occasion and we were well satisfied with the afternoon’s entertainment. What did strike me was the number of ladies in the band. The entire solo cornet section was made up of females, with a number of other players also being female. This isn’t uncommon but would have been 30 or 40 years ago. The photo is of our younger son with Vince's E flat tuba.