Ian was my mentor when I started singing in the 1970s, and I often drove him to gigs (he didn't drive). Yes, he lived in Moore, between Runcorn and Warrington and by the Bridgewater Canal, in a house called Clinker Bonks with Grace and their children Keir and Hester. Grace and Ian split up a while ago and Ian moved to Poland and then Oxford. Hester died a few years ago.

He was a fine singer -- I remember him making a particularly good job of The Jailer's Song in The Transports in Chester in about 1980 -- and his partnership with Charley Yarwood will always be remembered by those who heard them. Their song sessions in the Horse and Groom in Sidmouth featured the best of the festival week singers and the occasional band (me and my friends in the Electropathic Battery Band included, in grass skirts I remember). And yes, he ran the Frodsham Folk Club, a Sunday session at the Red Lion in Moore and he organised the Moore Village Festival while he was in the North West.

RIP Ian.