Seeing the video of this wonderful man brought back many happy memories of the several occasions that we booked him at our folk club in Lewes.

This was a direct result of my asking Reg Hall who from the London Irish scene that he thought would go down well in our folk club, which Reg knew favoured the traditional, ethnic end of the music. Reg made several good suggestions and in particular, the McCarthys and Lucy Farr and friends became regular guests. The McCarthys were Tommy, playing pipes as well as concertina, with his three wonderful daughters who were about 8, 10 and 12 at that first time and the lovely old fiddler Bobby Casey.

It was Reg who gave me Tommy's phone number and the first time I remember asking, him if he and the family could come and play at our folk club, and at first he sounded very dubious.... he had never played in folk clubs, or hardly ever outside London since he had come over for that matter - the Irish traditional scene in London was very separate from the folk scene - but when I mentioned that it was Reg that had given me his number, he became interested and asked me lots of questions about what the booking would involve. After that he decided that his music would be suitable for our club so I went on to suggest a date. "That sounds fine." Tommy answered, "but I'd better just go and check my diary.".... a fairly long gap before Tommy came back.... "Oh dear! Sadly, we are playing at the Royal Albert Hall that night."

Fortunately, we were able to arrange another date and we were able to bring them back on a number of occasions.