The children of two former Stettler residents invite former colleagues, students and friends to reach out through phone, email and Facebook to help make Peter and Noeline Brockley’s diamond anniversary something extra special.
The pair, married Feb. 20, 1954, in Wales, have received more than 100 phone calls, emails and Facebook messages from former coworkers, students and friends since their children posted the anniversary notice in the Independent last month, Peter Brockley said. He and his wife are keeping a list of each and every contact.
“I feel quite pleased,” Peter Brockley said. “They (his children Susan, Stephanie and Duncan) have done a lot.”
In addition to the hundreds of messages, the pair received a copy of their 60-year-old wedding certificate, which was centred below one of their wedding pictures in a frame. They also received a letter of congratulations from Canada’s Governor General, David Johnston, and one from the Queen.
While these things are precious to both of them, Peter Brockley said it’s been wonderful hearing from the many people their activity in Stettler touched.
The son of a former colleague now teaches the English language in China and took the time to email them when he heard about the outreach effort, Peter Brockley said.
“That was really surprising,” he said.
Many of their students, either from the school itself or students from music and voice classes or from the choirs and musical theatre groups the pair were involved with have wandered far from Alberta, but took the time to reach out when they found out about the project.
“Roberta (Bobby) Walls — Rogers now — from Erskine is now in Tennessee,” he said. “She was a great musical theatre actress and always in the festival. She’s a lawyer now.”
While the calls and emails weren’t a surprise — the pair had an idea their children, especially their daughter Susan Starling, were up to something — the contacts have been precious.
“It’s great to hear from them,” Peter Brockley said. “Especially some of (our old) students.”
Musical ‘dynamos’
Peter and Noeline Brockley were part of the “heart and soul” of the Stettler musical art scene, as well as respected educators, before retiring and moving to Castlegar, B.C.
“They were absolute dynamos,” Bob Willis, who worked with the pair in the creation of the performing arts centre, said. “They were unstoppable. The energy — holy moly.”
Peter, a machinist and millwright, taught his skills to the next generations in shop classes in Stettler while his wife taught piano and voice.
The two eventually started a men’s choir and then a Gilbert and Sullivan musical theatre troupe. At the time there was no formal arts centre and the Brockleys and several others laboured for years to see a new, modern and sophisticated centre build adjacent to William E. Hay Composite High School.
While age has slowed them down a bit, Peter Brockley still has time to indulge in his passion for music. He is currently part of a band, and was part of two others until he had to step down to help take care of Noeline, who needs a bit more help at home than she used to, he said.
Noeline Brockley, especially, was a “driving force” behind musical theatre, Willis said.
“That was the strength of Noeline,” he said. “She’d direct the show, but she’d often sing and act, too.”
Willis himself built sets and managed the stage, but he also sang and acted a bit, too.
“The Gilbert and Sullivan gradually morphed into Musical Theatre of the more modern sense, but the entire time Noeline was just the driving force.”
The revival of the music festival allowed the Brockleys to demonstrate their redoubtable musical talents through the many students who would compete and showcase their ability.
“We were able to attract several good teachers to the area, because of the depth of our talent,” Willis said.
Susan Starling, one of Peter and Noeline’s three children, has memories infused with musical theatre due to her parents’ involvement in Stettler’s arts scene throughout her youth.
One memory sticks out in particular.
“It would be the first time I saw my parents, in the inaugural Gilbert and Sullivan production of H.M.S. Pinafore on the high school gym stage,” she wrote in an email. “(It was) with mom playing Buttercup and dad playing the Captain. I realized how brilliant they both were. I couldn’t have been more proud of anything the rest of my life.”
The Brockleys remained involved in the arts scene until they followed Starling to B.C. in 1999.
reporter1@stettlerindependent.com