Tony (I am the Music Man) Day didn't start the MBS, it was going several years before he got involved with it - he agrees. He has done a wonderful job of keeping it going and helping to build it into the institution it has become.

The year we started it, every pub in Sidmouth was being taken over by musician's sessions. That year, both Fred Jordan and Mervin Vincent were at Sidmouth, and we (myself, Charley Yarwood, and I think Ken Stevens) wanted somewhere that we could run a singaround with them. We managed to find the middle bar - there was something happening in the front bar and of course a dance out in the garden. It caught on, and by the time Tony took over the organisation, was already well established.