Friday night, I was privileged to be involved in a 60th Birthday celebration in honour of Alan, the landlord of the Woodman in Eastcote. A well attended bash which, no surprises, saw plenty of musos in attendance.

I played a few old favourites with Gavin on bass and Drew on drums, including a botched and aborted attempt at a Pink Floyd number or two. All this before the comedy double-act of Adam and Steve took the stage with lots of audience participation.

Of course, the night wouldn’t have been complete without ‘The Pekkers’, fronted by Martin and Alan with the unique sound of his electric madolin. The mandolin numbers are a personal favourite of mine probably just because I like the jangly sound. So I particularly enjoyed ‘Maggie May’ and ‘When I’m Dead And Gone’.

Drew was next up to front his appreciation of ‘Paul Rodgers’, kicking off with ‘Seagull’ which I nearly got right. Thanks to Paul for allowing me to play his acoustic guitar which is great to play and has a great sound.

It was also good to see Graham Radley, on MC duties – my old cricketing mate from Ruislip CC days.

So all-in-all, I think everyone had a great night – especially Alan on his special day -Congratulation Alan and keep on playing the Burns and of course the mandolin.

“Marvellous !”