Have you every had something that you were good at and really loved, but for different reasons you lost it…or gave it away? I have.

That something for me was music. When I was about 14 years old I was an accomplished musician for my age, playing trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, euphonium, a little bit of piano and the electronic organ. Those talents saw me playing most weekends in an old time ballroom dance band – Ron Campbell’s Orchestra, “The Pride of the South Coast”. All was fabulous for a few years, and then I found girls. The pressure for a young adolescent boy of competing priorities got a little too much, and ultimately, I chose girls and lost the music. That loss lasted almost 15 years. When I met Anne she had no idea of my musical aptitude – all she knew was that some odd looking cases took up a whole lot of room in my wardrobe. Those cases contained my sax and trumpet. I knew I would make music again, and in the early 1990’s I did. As a family, in 1990 we moved to Papua New Guinea (PNG), where I took up an expat post in Lae. With our personal effects, I packed in my instruments. It didn’t take long after settling in Lae to find other musicians, all keen to play. I joined “Tisol Tasol”, a band comprising mostly school teachers, playing at school charity events and other community fund raisers. A huge thanks to Thomo for helping me find my musical mojo again.

Fast forward a few years. We moved home from PNG to Cairns in 2000, where my musical passion continued to flourish. Again, through the kids school connections, I met a like minded group of friends, and was soon performing with “On Q” at charity events, dinner dances, Rotary Club fund raisers, weddings and everything in between. After a move from Cairns to Brisbane in 2006, I discovered the Weekend Warrior program, and the members of my band “Lattitude”. Weekend Warriors is a program that brings musicians together through a Jam day, matches them up into different bands, and mentors them over a month, with the aim of performing for friends and families at a one-night-only rock concert – an awesome program. For some of the bands, it finishes there, but for others, the music continues. That’s how it was for Lattitude. We’ve had a few line up changes, but the core members of the band have remained. While I’m on the run, the music may have gone quiet, but the intent remains. I won’t lose it again.