At 96, Hubert 'Bert' Davies is the oldest member of Fremantle-based jazz band The 78s, which gigs at local cafes and bars — the youngest member is just 19.

Mr Davies is a lean man with a tough grip and Welsh accent who first picked up the sticks at 16 — much to the chagrin of his classical pianist father.

"I heard from one friend that they were talking to him about me and he said, 'to think I bred a drummer'," he said.

"He didn't like drumming. He never came to hear me play, my mother did but he never did."

Mr Davies played during WWII, narrowly missing the Nazi blitzes of Swansea.

"It was approximately six months or nine months into the war when the Germans decided to bomb Swansea and we were playing 13 miles away," he said.

"The minister came on the stage because we were playing in a church hall ... and said 'there appears to be a lot of activity over the Swansea area tonight and I am asking you all to stay in the confines of the church'.

"The following morning we found out one square mile of Swansea was completely gone. Every church, every chapel, everybody that had gone for sanctuary was dead."

Hubert Davies learnt the drums at 16 before joining bands in the early 1940s. ( Supplied: Hubert Davies. )

After a six-decade drumming hiatus, Mr Davies was given a drumkit for Christmas, and was with friends at a cafe when he heard The 78s playing.

"I hadn't played the drums in donkey's years ... I was introduced to the trumpet player and he asked me if I was a brush drummer and I said 'yes'. He said 'would you like to join?'

"The first number was played and the trumpeter turned around and gave me the thumbs up and by the second number ... the bass player leaned over and said 'you're hired'."

Mr Davies said the older and younger members of the band were able to learn from each other.

He said the band's 19-year-old guitarist had a lot to offer.

"I think he gets the musical experience and he's a hell of a nice guy," he said.

"He's learning, he is showing off what he's learned ... he is fabulous, he is coming on really well ... I am learning too."

Hubert Davies on the way to a gig at a Fremantle cafe. ( ABC News: Sarah Collard )

Mr Davies said getting back behind the kit came very naturally.

"Rhythm was part of my life and if I sat down and listened to somebody play I was always in with the beat," he said.

When he's not playing the drums, Mr Davies is building clocks and repairing timepieces. He also keeps himself busy making beer, baking his own bread, growing vegetables in his garden and smoking meat.