Bugle played at Vimy Ridge will be heard in London on Remembrance Day
CBC
On Remembrance Day every year, David Cunningham can be heard playing The Last Post on his bugle at Victoria Park. But for the London, Ont., musician, the instrument is a reminder of his grandfather who served in the First World War.
"He would never talk much about things but the bugle was always part of our visits to him," Cunningham said of his maternal grandfather George William Shaw.
Shaw enlisted in the army at the age of 18 when the war broke out. He was the company bugler and served in the northern France Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917.
"In his basement was this old piece of brass and as a kid that's always interesting, so I tried to honk on it with not much success and he'd just laugh about it," Cunningham recalled.
Cunningham would go on to become a music teacher at various London schools. So after Shaw's death, he got the instrument and made it a tradition to play at Remembrance Day ceremonies in schools.
On the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge in April, 2017, Shaw's bugle was flown to France where it was played at a ceremony. Cunningham describes it as a wonderful moment with four generations of his family sitting together and watching it.
Playing the bugle also allowed Cunningham to share his personal story to students on the significance of remembering, especially for those who didn't lose a relative to war.
"At least I could tell them the story of my grandfather and the War, the shell shock he suffered, and the issues the War caused," he said. "It gave the kids something to connect to."
During Shaw's time in the War, he accidentally wounded himself by landing on his bayonet during a bombardment in a rock quarry next to Flanders Field. It got him into trouble with his commanders because at the time, many soldiers would self-injure themselves to get out of war, but he managed to clear his name and ended up at Vimy Ridge, Cunningham said.
The War's impacts were not lost on Shaw, his grandson said. Cunningham heard stories from family members who remember Shaw "looking like a ghost" when he returned home to Toronto.
"He suffered from a nervous disorder so he couldn't really go out in public," he said. "The shadow of what he'd experienced in the trenches certainly lived with him for a long time."
Cunningham said Shaw was "one of the lucky ones to land a job" with Ontario Hydro during the Great Depression. A few years after his first wife died, Shaw remarried and moved to Vancouver.
"I remember him in his last years as a very content man quick to laugh, very relaxed in life, so he kind of came full cycle and ended his life having recovered from what had happened in the past," Cunningham said.
The bugle is a piece of Cunningham's family history that he deeply cherishes. His granddaughter has plans to continue that legacy and take the bugle to France for Vimy Ridge's 150th anniversary.