"Music was my first love, and it will be my last....."

So said John Miles in 1975. It's something that for a long time I might have been accused of (!), but it is now, and always has been, a very important part of my life.

I started out playing in a group when I was at school in the early 1970's. We didn't even have a name that I can remember, but we certainly expected one day to be pop stars!

That's me over on the right in case you were wondering! It started getting serious in the last couple of years at school when I was in a group called "Out of Line" with John Scott on guitar, Mark "Buster" Steadman on drums, me on bass, and Christina Lanni and Lynn Ferguson on vocals. We played our first gig on Monday 23rd May 1977 at a Working Men's Club called "Bentley Comrades" in Doncaster, and that led to an arrangement with an agency called "Artiste Management" which saw us playing clubs all over Yorkshire. Having two female singers, it is probably no surprise to learn that we covered lots of ABBA material in those days!

Sadly, our name was not wisely chosen - "Out of Line" sounds too much like "Out of Tune" for those in the audience who had taken a touch too much to drink. Still, we were young and evolving!

The dream was not to be, however, and I then went through a period of about ten years where I didn't even pick up a guitar. That was until my best friend, Mike Baldwin, encouraged me to join the folk group at our local church, "Our Lady of the Assumption" in Stainforth, near Doncaster. Mike also introduced me to the Doncaster 101 branch of the HCPT (known at that time as the Handicapped Children's Piligrimage Trust", a group that takes sick and disadvantaged children to Lourdes once a year. It is necessary to raise a significant amount of money each year, and we formed a music group, "Stainforth in Song" to help with this process. Our first "gig" was in Doncaster in December 2007.

We were a mixed bunch, but really enjoyed ourselves, playing covers of popular hymns in parishes all over Yorkshire. All the money we raised was for HCPT, and I can remember one occasion vividly where we were not paid with money, but with blankets! All welcome! The only requirement for membership in Stainforth in Song was a desire to sing. We even made a tape, Inspirations of Lourdes (which you can hear samples of in the Media section), although the quality was not what we might expect these days, recorded as it was on a Porstastudio tape machine that was de vigour in those days.

Going from the top left on the back row we have Lilian, Katie McDermott, Margaret Scarborough, Margaret Prescott, Anne Overton, and then seated on the front row from the left are Mike Baldwin, Kevin L'Amie, Phil Hall and Yours Truly. Sadly, Margaret Scarborough, Margaret Prescott and Kevin L'Amie are no longer with us, and the meories we have in the recordings are dedicated to their memory. Honourable mention must also be made of Rose Shay, Cath ******* who, for some reason didn't make it into the picture above (shyness was probably not a reason!)

In the next few years, I decided that I would like to learn music properly, and so enrolled on some music courses with the Open University. One course in particlular - "A214 Understanding music: elements, techniques and styles" was incredibly useful in teaching me how music is constructed, and for the first time in my life I was able to contemplate providing backing tracks to my own music without fear. I also managed to obtain both a Diploma in Music and subsequently a degree, so the time spend on these courses was definately not wasted. I would recommend the Open Univertity to anyone.

The next time that we got together, in different format, was to provide some music for my mum's 70th birthday. Being Irish, we chose music with a ring of deal old Ireland, and managed to practise in secret for six months before springing a surprise.

Once again a changing lineup here with only Phil, Mike (that's his head at the back) and me from the original Stainforth in Song, but with th every welcome addition of my brother Steve and his best friend Kev Fitzpatrick. The latter, with a name like that, had never heard any of the Irish material we were doing and had to learn the whole lot from scratch. Being a professional, however, it was no problem for him! Not long after this came the terrible tragedy of the Tsunami in South East Asia. We tried to do our bit to help, and arranged a concert at Our Lady's. It was a great success and we were able to send a very reasonable sum to CAFOD to help in the relief effort.

We had much the same lineup as we had at the party, but thankfully Lilian joined us this time to add a bit of class. That's her in the middle between Steve and Mike. There is a sample of the music from this concert over in the Media section.

Our next major excursion was to play at an Open Day at my work in York. There were two major changes for this, the first being that we temporarilly changed our name to "Slainte!" (which is gaelic for "Cheers" - incredibly apt considering the amount of free alcohol that was consumed during the day!). The second major change was the absence for the first time at any of our concerts of Mr Michael Baldwin. He had taken his family off on holiday somewhere, and we had to perform without him. Phil has pointed out on more than one occasion that his absence improved us, but feel free to judge for yourselves by listening to the samples, once again, in the Media section.