In 1960 one Saturday morning listening to ‘Uncle Mac, on my parents radio, I heard this wonderful NEW sound, a sound that at the time was to me, very futuristic. It tumed out to be a new up and coming group of instrumentalists called ‘The Shadows’.

A few weeks later, one Friday tea time on TV's CRACKERJACK’ there they were again with this bloke wearing hom rimmed specs playing an electric guitar with a chrome plated lever that he kept pulling and bending all over the place.

From that moment on I abandoned my intention to play football for Sheffield Wedesday and saved hard to buy my first guitar. There were no Fender Stratocasters to be found for £3.17.6d, (£3.75 today) so I had to buy an accoustic guitar with a hole in it to learn me new trade. Although I sounded nothing like the Shadows, it was to lead to my first steps in front of an audience with my pal Spud West, and after playing on a Vox Duotone, through a Watkins Dominator amplifier that my parents financed as a reward for my efforts, I dropped onto my first Stratocaster.

I’ve since played all over Britain and the Continent playing many different styles of music, all of which I still enjoy today, and have enjoyed a good living from hearing The Shadows all those years ago, in fact it’s their fault that I never had a proper job! This is my little tribute to a wonderful and inspirational band of musicians, namely Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, Jet Harris, Tony Meehan, Brian Bennett, Brian "Liquorice" Locking, the late John Rostill, Alan Jones, Mark Griffiths and Cliff Hall. The Shadows !

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