By Casey Neill
Mabel Green is a Monomeith musical marvel.
The 90-year-old saxophonist plays two gigs a month with three-piece band Ebbtide – the first Saturday of the month at Clyde Public Hall and the Nar Nar Goon North Hall on the second Saturday.
“I was taught when I was 14 and I think I was only three months taught and I played in the family band,” she said.
Mabel and her sister caught the train into Melbourne from Monomeith station each week for lessons with well-known musician Rick Coulsen.
“There was a train service here in those days. Why they ever stopped this train service I’ll never know,” she said.
The family band was Clark’s Orchestra and featured Mabel’s mum on piano, her brother on drums and her sister on slap bass.
“We played a lot, all through the area,” she said.
When she got married and started her family, her younger brother stepped up to slap bass and her sister took over the tenor sax role.
But Mabel “went from band to band to band to band, until now even”.
She plays “old time” tunes on tenor and alto sax in Ebbtide, accompanied by drums and piano.
“Most of them are pensioners and oldish people now that go to those dances,” she said.
“The young ones don’t go now, they go to the pub.”
A love of music and company has kept her going.
“You meet some very nice people in the band, that go there dancing,” she said.
“One lady gave me those two crochet rugs and I asked her for the pattern,” she said, gesturing towards two colourful rugs on her couch.
Mabel motored up to her farmhouse on a quad bike when the Gazette arrived to chat with her, reversing the vehicle into a shed with quick precision before disembarking and taking up her walking stick.
Add her bright red hair into the mix and hard to believe the woman before you is 90.
But Mabel was born in 1926, raised on a farm “across the road” from her current 300-acre property, and went to school in Monomeith.
“My father had purebred jerseys and showed them all over the place. He got many prizes and champions,” she said.
She followed in his footsteps when she moved to her own farm in 1950 after marrying.
“I dairy farmed for years until I got too old,” she said.
From 1968 she managed the farm on her own while raising four children.
Mabel now tends to 240 head of angus beef with help from her son Philip.
“Philip was in the Federal Police for about 30 years and he retired. Now he works for the Australian Defence Force,” she said.
“He’s a great help.”
