Oscar the Frog were founded by Ian McMillan, Martin Wiley and Steve Sutcliffe as a school band. Ian and Martin left fairly early - to paraphrase Ian's own account "musical differences" - the band was musical, they weren't. Steve Sutcliffe played fiddle and guitar, Billy Creasey (mandoline) and his brother played accordion.Sue Banks played flute as well as concertina.As the band developed various members came and went and many were multi-instrumentalists - Dave Lauder (bass, guitar, accordion, keyboards) Nigeria Pease (drums) Eddy Green (bass)and the band also worked with callers for ceilidhs, including Dave Malkin and Roy Atkinson. In 1980 they got a 2 week tour to Derry, but not all the band members could go, so a line-up for the tour was Steve, Sue, Mark Walker (bass) Roy Whyke (drums) Jim Thompson (guitar, keyboards) and Steve Linstead (caller). When we got there we found that most of the gigs were in venues where there was no room to dance, so we quickly rehearsed song sets. We went down a bomb - literally - we are our last performance in the open air at the back of the Guildhall and shortly after it was blown up.The success of the tour led to recording the eponymous album that summer, and a single "Saturday Night" penned by Steve Sutcliffe. We gigged throughout the following year but personal and professional relocations meant theine-up had to change in 1982. Duncan Waller replaced Mark Walker who went yo Uni.The band reverted to mostly ceilidhs but continued with a smaller line-up with Jim and Sue at the heart of it for many years. Steve S. became a translator and now lives and plays in Phom Penh. Jim, Sue and Steve L. performed a musical and spoken word one off with Heather Hopfl in 1992 at the Lancaster Nuffield Theatre using tracks prerecorded by Jim to form a 10 piece band, just with less beer and no need to raise bail for the drummer. Roy and Duncan joined Jon Strong in the mid 80s and are still the Jon Strong Trio. Steve played with Silk Roots in Hong Kong, collaborated with Finn Castle Mill and one of the Robertson Brothers in Australia, and more recently has worked as the Black Snow Roadshow project with Geordie legend Jed Grimes. Dave Lauder did solo work but devoted his efforts yo jazz, and has retired to Marche in Italy.