Philip's 30 years of Remembrance duty

Very much belying his 81 years, Phil was again on parade in his Royal Artillery uniform to play the Last Post and Reveille for the war memorial wreath-laying ceremony in front of Worcester Cathedral on this year's Remembrance Day - November 11.

Since around the start of the 1970s, Phil has sounded the Last Post and Reveille to mark the start and end of the two minutes' silence inside Worcester Cathedral at 11am and at the war memorial outside at noon, though for the past two years this duty inside the Cathedral has been taken over by Roy Runicles of the Salvation Army Band.

Philip also sounds the same two military bugle calls for the Remembrance Day wreath-laying each year by the Mayor and Royal British Legion chairman on the grave in St John's Cemetery of the legendary First World War padre Woodbine Willie - the Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, who was Vicar of St Paul's, Worcester from 1914 to 1922.

His bugle calls are to be heard too, at the annual November wreath-laying at the prisoner-of-war graves in Astwood Cemetery, and he is often asked to play at the graveside for funerals of ex-servicemen.

Philip is deeply grateful to his friend John Hewlett, chairman of the Worcester Royal British Legion, for first inviting him to play at the Remembrance Day commemorations. "He came to me about 30 years ago and asked if I could play the Last Post because the Legion was stuck for a bugler. I requested three weeks to get my lip in, as we call it, but I learned it and have played it on Remembrance Day ever since. I never fail to found it a very emotional experience but a great privilege."

Phil has now been playing the cornet for 70 years since the age of 10 and still proudly uses the silver instrument given him by his mother on his 17th birthday in 1937.

"On that day, my mother said go into the kitchen and you'll find a parcel. I unwrapped it to see, to my delight, a cornet case with a beautiful silver instrument inside.

"It had apparently cost £25 - a lot of money then - and I wondered where my mother got the money for it, though I think my elder sister, Elizabeth probably helped buy it."

Philip was one of six children - four boys and two girls - of Ben and Annie Ashby who lived in Laslett Street, Rainbow Hill. Ben was a railway policeman for many years but had to retire early on health grounds and went to work as a packer for Firkins & Co., the glove manufacturers at Bull Entry. For some years he was also district organiser for the Transport and General Workers Union.

From the time they were very small boys, Phil and his brother Tom were taken by their mother to the Rainbow Hill Chapel on Sundays, though she was extremely strict about punctuality and would not go inside if they were late and the service had started.

"It was on just such an occasion, when we arrived to hear the first hymn being sung, that mother collared both of us and told us we were off back home. On the way, however, we heard a band playing in the distance and asked if we could go and listen to it. Mother agreed, and so off we skipped down Rainbow Hill to find the Salvation Army Band playing outside the Lowesmoor Citadel.

"We enjoyed the sound so much that we followed the band inside and asked mother if we could go to The Citadel again the following week. In fact, from that day forth the Ashby family, except for father, were to be ardent members of the Salvation Army.

"Tom and I learned to play instruments in the junior band, and I was handed my first cornet at the age of 10. The first tune I learned was Duke Street, and we were very much helped by the junior band leader Bert Lewis, so it was unfortunate for us when he left to become a Salvation Army officer. Luckily, my sister Doris, who also played cornet, stepped in to continue my instruction."

Phil was promoted at 15 into the Salvation Army's senior band and was to play in it for many years under bandmaster Alf Hooper, "a strict disciplinarian but a very good conductor.

"I vividly remember some amusing incidents with the band. There was the occasion when we gave an open air concert in old historic Lich Street, and a lady chose to throw out a bucket of dirty water and potato peelings from an upstairs window.

"Unfortunately, it all went over Alf Hooper who was certainly not best pleased. The woman was terribly apologetic and took him inside to dry off his tunic so we could continue with the concert.

"Another time we were marching along Foregate Street when our player of the big drum, Fred Cotterell, a shortish chap, didn't notice that the standard bearer and the band had turned left into Sansome Street. He continued on through the traffic lights to The Cross with Alf Hooper in hot pursuit. Alf eventually caught him and took the big drum off him in order to carry it hurriedly down St Nicholas Street and place it back on Fred's shoulders again as they caught up with the band outside St George's Catholic Church."

Phil also recalls the late summer Sundays when the Salvation Army Band and officers went out into the countryside to give services for the thousands of hop-pickers who came from the Black Country to the hop fields of such areas as Great Witley, the Shelsleys and Martley.

"They would be cooking chickens on spits over open fires and enjoyed taking part in services. I was sitting alone one evening when a little old lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could play a particular hymn, The Old Rugged Cross. Alf Hooper told her that if she would sing it, I would play the cornet alongside her.

"This I did, and the tears streamed down her face. Afterwards she pulled out a grubby pound note from her pocket and offered it to me but I said I could not accept, though she would be welcome to put it in one of our Salvation Army collecting boxes. Whether she did or not, I don't know."

During the Second World War when Phil ruled was unfit for military service due to poor eyesight, he played in the Royal Artillery TA Band at Malvern, for about four years, also continuing in the Salvation Army Band until the 1950s. Later, he played too in the Malvern Municipal Band for some years.

Phil was educated at St Barnabas School, Rainbow Hill, where he played centre-half in the cup-winning football team, and from school he got a job with printers Ebenezer Baylis. He then moved to the Tyre Service in The Tything, working alongside a friend Bert South who later set up in business on his own as the Auto Tyre and Battery Company at Lowesmoor.

Bert invited Phil to join the firm, which he readily did, and he has now been with it for 53 years. Under Bert, and subsequently his son Neville, the company expanded to have branches in Malvern, Droitwich, Redditch, Evesham, Bridgnorth and Leominster.

Phil opened and ran the Redditch branch for about 40 years, but since the deaths of Bert and Neville South, he has worked only part time, now just one day a week at the Malvern depot.

Alas, Phil is now one of only two surviving children of Ben and Annie Ashby.

His sister, Elizabeth, now 91, lives at Bevere. She worked at Ebenezer Baylis for many years and was married to Bill Francis who originally played bass in the Salvation Army Band.

The four other Ashbys who have died were Tom Ashby of Blackpole and Vincent Ashby of Astwood Road, who were both train drivers, Harry Ashby of Malvern, who was a tin-smith at Eltex and then worked for the RRE, and Doris Ashby, who was a shorthand typist with glove manufacturers Firkins and married Ernie Nethercoat, the son of a Salvation Army officer.

A nephew of Phil is the former top-level English football referee, Gerald Ashby, who lives at Kempsey and is the son of the late Tom Ashby.

Phil and his wife Winifred (maiden name, Smith) have now been married for 57 years and live in Fern Road, Worcester. They have a daughter, Janet (Mrs Shepherd) who is a teacher at Worcester's Oldbury Park Primary School.

Phil certainly doesn't look 81 and says he doesn't feel it either.

Looking back on his "bugle" playing duties, Phil concludes: "I've played before the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and many other pubs, but I owe it to my friend Jack Hewlett that I have had the honour so many times of playing at Worcester Cathedral."