The family of celebrated Montrose Town Band leader Jim Easton have installed a memorial to the musician overlooking the town’s bandstand site.
“Inspirational” family man and bandmaster Jim Easton died aged 91 in 2019 months after stepping down from his role at the head of the town’s brass band.
Generations of local musicians fondly remember receiving lessons from the cornet player and retired joiner, who was at the heart of the community group for around 40 years.
The community raised more than £3,500 in his memory.
Grandaughter Karen Easton has been working with council officials, and bench makers David Ogilvie, since the start of last year on the specially-designed piece.
The family recently installed it in Dean’s Park, overlooking the spot where the town’s bandstand once stood.
She said: “We are thrilled to see it there now. We requested for it to be there because that’s where the bandstand used to be and years gone by he played there.
“The bandstand isn’t there now, but there is a modern representation. The bench looks across to that. It was quite important to us, as a family, that’s where the bench be sited.”
The bench features the name James Easton, the silhouette of a conductor, brass instruments, musical notation and the epitaph ‘thank you for the music.’
“The first design had musical instruments on it, but it was more orchestral. My grandfather would have been furious with that. He was a brass man through and through,” Karen added.
She thanked all those who had donated and helped, including the Montrose Town Band and independent Councillor Tommy Stewart.
“The silhouette came from the designer, but we were taken with it because it looks like the silhouette of our Grandpa.
“It’s an image we hold of him, because we’ve all played in the band. It does look like him.”
Jim was one of the group of tradesmen and players who built the band’s rehearsal space in the 1940s in Queens Close, off High Street.
He said the annual band concert, in which they would play well-known soundtracks such as the classic theme from Indiana Jones, was the highlight of his musical year.
But what would the old band leader have made of the bench now dedicated to his memory?
Karen laughs: “My Grandpa’s words would have been: A bench? Lassie – you could have got three cornets and a euphonium for that.”
