hi

Like others here I seemed to have been born just loving any kind of music.

However it was Lonnie Donnegan that actually influenced me to buy a guitar and actually learn to play so that I could achieve my ambition to play and sing in public.

My old man had a couple of Donnegan records and although the skiffle wave had started to fade into memory I bought an old Hofner guitar and started to teach myself to play along with Lonnie. I have to be honest and say that I wasn't a great admirer of Lonnie's music but it got me playing. So I will always be thankful to Lonnie.

By some strange chance I actually met up with Lonnie some years later. He was visiting some people who he stayed with as an evacuee many years earlier in my home town in Cheshire, though I was unaware of this.

The guy who he stayed with by this time was the Mayor and Lonnie came up to do a set for the Mayor's charity.

I was playing with a band on the same show.

We had a beer together and talked about Jazz.

Cheers

John