Mike started his bass playing career relatively late in life, his first forays into playing the bass were while he was teaching at Angley School in the late 1980s. He played with the school wind band and later with the 10 piece Saturday morning group run by music teacher and then town band conductor Nick Carter.

Entirely self taught Mike picked up the bass very quickly and it wasn’t long before he was persuaded into coming along to the town band with the rest of the Saturday brass players. From there he never looked back and quickly became a key (and sometimes only) player in the bass section.

Tony Smith (age 62) Funeral at Tunbridge Wells, 2 May 2002 Edited version of Address given by Rev. Dick Dengate. Tony came from a close family, one of four children who always got on well. He was born in Kensington in 1939, and brought up in Hounslow, where he went to school. He became a