Biography 

In Portsmouth I attended Victoria College, later we moved to Cheltenham, thereafter we moved once again to Torquay where I attended Firstwood College. 

 

I was born into a musical family my mother Ray was a pianist and also played the accordion, my brother Don played the sax and violin and my brother John played both accordion and drums. As a youngster I used to listen to them play, wishing I could join in. Then one day I went to the movies and saw Harry James (one of the finest trumpet players of his day) on the big screen, and all I wanted to do from then on was play the Trumpet. So I went home and asked my mother to put an advertisement in the paper and to sell my electric train set, so that I could use the money to buy a trumpet. 

In the local music shop they had a Louse Armstrong special silver Trumpet, which my mother, having sold the train kit bought for me. That’s how I got my start on the trumpet. 

 

After a period of time and much practice and improvement, I was eventually invited to join the family Band. 

 

Thereafter I studied at the Northern College of Music in Manchester under Cecil Kid (A Great Player ) and the Parker School of Brass in London. 

 

My professional career kicked off when I was in Torquay and a friend of mine who played the piano, Steve Evans also from Devon, was playing with a band on the Mecca Circuit in Birmingham called "Harry Boostic" he phoned me and told me to attend an audition, which I did. I got the job and then the band moved to Manchester where I started to study. When I left that band I joined the "Morris Mack Band" which had a lot of great players, that was the time that I joined the NVO. A little later I heard that Oscar Rabin was holding additions for a trumpet player in Bolton, I did an audition and while I was in the Isle of Man, with Morris Mac, I received a telegram asking me to join the band. My first gig with the band was a live broadcast for the BBC at the Paris Cinema in Oxford Street London. 

 

I had two sons, Peter and Kim, my travels took me all over the country and abroad but my boys stayed in the UK. 

 

Some time later whilst working overseas, I met and fell in love with Eunice a professional singer from South Africa, we set up home near Johannesburg and had two sons Brett and Jason. Although none of my sons took up a musical career, Brett and Jason both moved to the UK, where I have now come back to join them. 

I no longer play professionally but I now take great pleasure in teaching and will always retain my passion for bringing out the talent in young musicians as I once was.