Eric... Bass, Harmonica Lead and backing vocals .

On my eighteenth birthday my Dad said to me “son”(he used to call me that sometimes) “son” he said, “you’ll never be a real man until you’ve been tattooed in a painful place”. So that afternoon we found ourselves stood outside “The Illustrated Man” in Fleetwood, but fortunately it was a Sunday and all the shops were shut, except for the second hand shop next door so, instead of a tattoo,

I got my first guitar-a Watkins Rapier 33, bright red it was, with a strap, and a plectrum and everything! Two years later and I was playing lead guitar in a band, OK, it wasn’t a very good band and we didn’t play that often but even Bert Weedon (yes I did have the book) had to start somewhere. I was introduced to country music by a friend who at the time was playing with Pete Naden. Subsequently we ended up playing together when I joined him on bass in Dave McQueens’ Power Band, later to become Rambling Fever and then the Sons of San Antone. Much later I played bass with a sixties group called The Sandgrounders, who, apart from the normal sixties music, ended up as one of the best Shadows tribute acts in the country.

I got back into country music when Pat asked me to play a couple of gigs with Settlers Creek until they got a “proper” bass player and twelve months later re-joined after The Sandgrounders split up and the Creeks “proper” bass player left. I still dabble on lead guitar and play with a charity band made up of hospital staff. I use Fender Guitars, Peavey, Ashdown and Fender amps, Shure mikes and as much free electricity as I can get. I work for the NHS as a Physiotherapy Technical Instructor and am free single and (so Duncan says) easy. I have a son (who makes me feel old) and a daughter (Hi Floss) who makes me feel young. I still haven’t got a tattoo.

Eric