About Me

It was roughly 2009 when I discovered my dad's old compact film camera and I immediately took interest in it. Took a few pictures around a few places before putting it down. Fast forward a couple of years and I picked up an interest in collecting cameras and built a love for photography. Then, in 2013 I got a Canon Rebel 2,000 EOS 300 as a present, (thanks brother!) Fully equipped with its EF 28-90mm kit lens. That was it. I was rarely without that camera for the best part of the decade. Something that continues to be the case.

It was about the same time funnily enough that I got an interest in music. It was 2012 when I 'discovered' classical/orchestral music and I still remember vividly skimming through channels on my granddad's old Roberts DAB, a very different experience from old pop, rock and jazz that I was used to at the time. My brother had bought a harmonica and as you do when you're young, I wanted one too. And to my surprise, I got one... A Hohner Valley in C which I played to death. I'd know, it's on my shelf. Soon after we started going to folk sessions and this lead my brother to buy an anglo concertina which we both picked up very quickly and became his main instrument, so the house was never missing music, and we unironically became 'known' as the 'concertina brothers.'
We were at Bromyard Folk Festival in 2016 when we were in The Fleece Inn's beer tent, my brother was playing his concertina and I was on the piano playing The History Man when a melodeon player waltzed up and asked if he could join in, and he did. He played it similarly to how Andy Cutting, the author does and after that I was set on a melodeon. I wound up going home with a Golden Parrot and a few months later I had a Castagnari Tommy. This is when I started my music YouTube channel. I was a part of a Morris team for a while, I became friends with The Accordion Centre in Birmingham which is where I get my boxes serviced and have worked with them, became a Burwell Bash regular and now I'm teaching the instrument and working to make photography a career.

I'm still rarely without a camera and I'm still going to folk sessions. I also started a personal blog where I write about random stuff now and then!