AGE shall not weary 91-year-old Maryborough resident Cliff Jacobs.
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This Anzac Day, as he has done for the past 48 years, Mr Jacobs will rise early, dress in his Salvation Army band uniform and gently blow warm breath through his cornet to wake it in readiness for the Last Post.
Since 1965, Mr Jacobs has played a solitary cornet at this most poignant of ceremonies – firstly with the Warrnambool Salvation Army Band.
He joined the Maryborough band in 1986 and has since played the traditional bugle call each year at Majorca and Carisbrook on Anzac Day morning.
“As long as the good Lord gives me strength, I’ll keep going,” Mr Jacobs said.
“He’s challenged me and I’m still going...”
Mr Jacobs never served in the war, but this is his way of commemorating those who did - like his two brothers-in-law.
Plus, he said somebody “dobbed” him in all those years ago and he just kept on going.
“Somebody’s got to do it,” he said of his Anzac Day role.
“If somebody else comes along and wants to take over, that’s fine – but they just depend on me.”
Mr Jacobs was a full-time member of the Salvation Army band during part of World War Two and has many memories of how the war affected his community in Warrnambool.
“When Darwin was bombed we were told not much damage had been done,” he said, then told of the usual lively Friday night shopping being cancelled and a black-out falling across the town.
“It was quite an eerie feeling and we didn’t realise how serious it was,” Mr Jacobs said.
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Cliff Jacobs (centre) with son Graeme and wife Margaret. Picture: Jim Aldersey
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He recalled the roof of the Nestle factory where he worked being painted a dull colour so it could not be spotted by potential war craft.
Mr Jacobs said he has seen attendance at these country Anzac Day ceremonies grow over the years.
“I think the way the young people have been taught, they’ve become more interested in it, which is a good thing,” he said.
About 30 Majorca and 70 Carisbrook locals will rise early tomorrow to honour those who have fallen.
Mr Jacob’s son and daughter-in-law are also in the Maryborough band and will play alongside him.
Mr Jacob’s wife, Margaret, also 91, has heard her husband play the Last Post many times during their life together.
“He was manager of the Koroit hospital for 13 years and whenever a serviceman passed away, he would be called and asked if he could go to the cemetery to play the cornet,” Mrs Jacobs said.
“He’d call in and pick me up and I’d go with him.
“The widows always said it was very important, they said it always made the funeral so much easier.
“Quite a few tears would roll down their faces when they listened to the Last Post.”
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