My Background

I started my musical career at the age of nine with Pemberton Old, a local brass band in the North-West of England (Wigan). I started to play the Cornet which is a descendant of the Trumpet, slightly wider in bore giving a more mellow sound. I studied playing with a local gentleman George Ashurst who used to each all the young players from the band to try and improve the bands performance. I worked my way up through the ranks of the band until I was 16 years of age, I was then offered the Flugel horn spot with the Wingates Band.

At the same time  I decided to take my playing to a more serious level and booked a set of lessons with a local gentleman (Frank Hughes) who was and still is a composer of music for the brass band fraternity, and played the cornet with the famous 'Men o' Brass conducted then by the late Sir Harry Mortimer O.B.E. 

I say them because they were actually three bands playing together. Fodens Motor Works from Sandbach in Cheshire, Fairy Aviation from Stockport, and the Morris Motors Band from Oxford. What a phenomenal sound 80 brass players and 6 percussionist playing in unison, I was immediately hooked. Two years later I was the assistant principle cornettist with the Fodens Band. We played concerts all over the Country and Radio Broadcasts. This is where I played my first duet. This was called Ida and Dot.

Whilst in the band I practiced a couple of hours minimum every evening and at the same time was entered for music examinations. It wasn't too long before I was offered the Principle cornet spot back at Wingates. A position which I then held for some ten years. Within months of joining the band I was playing the Royal Albert Hall again this time on my favourite instrument - the cornet.. I had an enjoyable time with the band touring both this country and abroad. There were concerts every weekend, radio broadcasts once a month and competitions three times a year.

It was at one of these competitions that I became the Solo Champion of Britain in 1979, and for the prize was a fully paid trip to Australia where I toured the southern part (New South Wales) playing at concerts etc. Still studying I gained my Fellowship of the Trinity College of Music in London in 1981. It was whilst studying for this that I turned my hand to conducting and the teaching of music. I am still involved with this on a freelance basis.