MONDAY was Bob Wallace's  37th Anzac Day performance at the Sale service with the Sale City Band. The 79-year-old has only missed two services during his 39 years with the band; one year because he performed at the Melbourne service and another because he had suffered a stroke.

Nearing the age of 80 in June with no sign of retirement, Mr Wallace's status as a World War 2 veteran has heightened his contribution to the band as its only returned serviceman. "The band grows on you," he said. "I've been involved in it for a long time, but I still enjoy it."

Mr Wallace and his Eb bass accompanies the band in many of its 20 to 30 performances each year. His musical interest was gleaned from his mother, a pianist who used to play for silent movies at the Victoria Hall in Macalister St, Sale.

He began learning the piano when he was seven, but gave it away when he hit his teenage years. "By 1938 if you were learning the piano you were a sissy," he said. "When I was 13 I gave it up and my father said it would be the sorriest day of my life - and it was."

Mr Wallace joined the Australian Army when he was 20 and served in Aitape Wewak, Papua New Guinea, in the 6th division in 1945. He spent his 21st birthday in the Sale air force hospital at war's end. He didn't pick up his musical  interest again until well after the war.

In 1966 he joined the Sale City Band as a bass drummer, along with his two children. "I played the bass drum for 32 years, until my legs gave out from marching," he said. "Then I chose the Eb bass probably because it was the easiest instrument to learn."

The highlight of Mr Wallace's 39 years in the band was winning every category they competed in during a band competition in Tasmania in 1971.

The marching tempo has ended for Sale City Band member Bob Wallace, after 35 years playing the bass drum. The demands of long marches have physically become too much for the retired Bob Wallace although he hopes to continue playing the Eb bass in static performances.

In his 35 years , he has marched in two Melbourne Moomba parades and played under 5 bandmasters. He began learning the cornet in 1942 from the then bandmaster, plumber Bill Heron but war service intervened and Bob Wallace did not return to the band ranks until 1966 when he was elected secretary.

Music is on Bob Wallace's maternal side, his mother Ann (nee Wain) had her own band, known as Fannie Wallace's Old Time Orchestra, early last century, playing for dances at the Sale Mechanics Institute and Australian Natives Association hall.