I was only about 5 or 6 when I started to make a noise on the piano. As you can appreciate at that age, any noise is good fun, until my mother stepped in and told me that if I wasn't going to play it, I couldn't play it at all. It wasn't too long after that that I ran into the kitchen saying "Mum, I have written a song!", to which she kindly followed me to the piano and patiently listened as most mothers would of their young children. And I had. It was only a limited amount of notes, and I couldn't play both hands, but I had. My first song, written straight from the heart.

I was 14 when I wrote my first "official" song in 1985. It had words, and music and yet I look back on it now and cringe! Yet, like most music throughout my life, it reflected how I was feeling and what I was observing around me at the time. To date I have written almost 150 songs and I was showing somebody I knew my folder, which contains them all. I went out of the room, and came back to find him putting them in date order! Shocked, I could see that by doing this, he would be able to read my life story. Yes, like a diary, music is my form of expression. In it I can describe my thoughts and fears, my loves and hates, my happiness and sadness, my dreams and wishes.

As the years have developed others have become part of my life, my friends and family have all had a share in singing songs around the piano. My brother Stephen has faithfully always been there developing harmonies with me, and his voice is great. Stephen decided that he would like to play along side me so about 4 years ago bought a guitar. Now considering he had never played a guitar before, it was a little strange that he didn't just borrow one. In a little under a year, Stephen had learned most of the chords used by popular artists today. Now Stephen's playing ability has just gone from strength to strength.

Through the course of time our band has grown from just three of us, to six and now currently stands at nine performers. Each have their own unique talent which adds to the end result which is Balladeer. Please browse our "members" page for a picture of each member of Balladeer. No doubt you would agree, that every band is as only good as it support, and Balladeer are so happy to enjoy the company of many people who have shown their own talent's in various areas of expertise. We regularly get together and practice songs for our new concert and will post information as to the date as soon as possible.