The History of The Band

The band started 1n 1972 as a four piece unit - Geoff Liles, Angie Seal, Chris Coombs (Tim's brother) and Dave Woods. They were four teachers who started a folk club at their school and decided to go along to the local folk club to sing their songs. A competition was held amongst the children to give a name to the band and Silver Birch was the best of a pretty awful selection of names and the name has stuck ever since.

After a year or so, Chris left the band to go solo. Sadly, he later died suddenly. His place was taken by Derek Rushmer who played in the band till his death in 2003.

Martin Bartlet, a fiddler, joined the band soon afterwards and gave a new dimension to the music.

In 1974, the band was complemented by Jane Clarke who added her rich voice to the vocal mix. Silver Birch worked up a set of well arranged songs based around four part harmony singing with thoughtful instrumental accompaniments. The band signed with an agent and soon became busy, working in the Lincolnshire/East Midlands area.

Towards the end of 1974, Silver Birch made an LP entitled 'Silver Birch'. This has since become a collector's item and a copy in good condition is worth a lot of money.

In 1976, Geoff left the band to move to Wales and Jane left to move to Coventry. Their places were taken by Len & Ruth Morter. The band continued to sing well arranged songs, moving gradually away from traditional material to the thought provoking songs penned by Len. The band stopped working so hard and performing became more of a hobby, the band being residents of Grimsby Folk Club.

Tim Coombs (brother of Chris) was the next new member of the band. He added some depth to the sound with his keybords and bass guitar.

About 1980, Silver Birch began to dabble in ceilidh band work with Martin taking the dominant role of lead fiddler. Len became the caller for the band and soon the ceilidh work became an important part of the band's repertoire.

Then Martin left the band due to a move to York where he still lives and his place was taken by Derek's younger brother Ian. Ian quickly became one of the best fiddlers in the Grimsby area. For a period, the band was augmented by two well known drummers on the electric folk band circuit - Johnny Tasker and Andy Watson. When Andy moved to Lancashire, Silver Birch reverted to having no drums. As the Ceilidh work became more important, the band split into two separate entities - a singing band comprising Len, Ruth, Derek and Dave and a ceilidh band comprising Len as caller, Ian, Tim, Derek and Dave.

This situation continued until about 1997 when Len and Ruth left the band for personal reasons. Unfortunately, Len died soon afterwards, after suffering from asbestosis, leaving the local folk scene bereft of a unique character and song writing talent.

Tim is leaving the band in April of this year and Dave's son Neil is replacing him. Neil is playing guitar and Dave is moving over to Bass guitar.

The band now concentrates on dances and no longer does any singing gigs.