Hello to all

What can I say without being boring?

I've grown up amidst the music of Northumberland from being a small child, and learned songs that my father's father taught him (and so on) without realising that not everyone has the sort of musical heritage that we have around here. Alongside the songs and dances, I learned to play the Northumbrian smallpipes from the late Joe Hutton - a lovely man and a great musicain with a wealth of tunes in his head - then stumbled into playing the flute and now spend more time than anything playing the fiddle.

I was lucky enough to be able to study music at York University where the staff were far-sighted enough to let me spend most of my final year concentrating on traditional music in my home area - if only I had the time to do that again now! Having decided that I didn't want to follow the classical route seriously, and being desperate to get back to my home patch again, I took up primary school teaching and am now headteacher of a small school in the Cheviot foothills - only 40 pupils aged 4 to 9, and I teach 20 of them full time.

I'm married to Andy who is a champion smallpipes player himself, and as well as doing lots of fiddle/pipes duets, we play in a group called Dishalagie with my dad (still playing the banjo and mandolin at the age of 74, and writing tunes too), a friend who's an expert moothie player with a six-sided mouth organ, and a singer who's just retired from being the last coble fisherman at Beadnell.

Well, I hope that wasn't too boring!