Last updated 12:13, Saturday, 22 March 2008

FOLK singer Dave Fry, who cut his musical teeth in Workington during the 1960s, has brought out his first CD.

Dave, who was born in the town and educated at Workington Grammar School, left West Cumbria when he was 19 for a career in the police force.

In the seven years since he retired as a Chief Inspector in Warwickshire, Dave has picked up the guitar again and blossomed into one of the Midlands’ best-known folk performers.

Now he has brought out a CD – Shifting Sands.

One of the tracks refers to Workington and when Dave was stood-up by a girl outside the old Ritz cinema.

Dave first started playing guitar when he was 13 with a group called TNT and in 1966 they won the Golden Gate band competition in Carlisle. Fellow members were John Lawson, Bill Clague, Hughie Murray and Tony Rennie.

“We used to practise in my mother’s attic in Park Lane and drive the neighbours mad.

“University took lads away and I started performing at the Workington Folk Club which was held in the old Griffin pub. People such as Keith Beattie, Ron and Anne Dickens were all involved.

“I moved to the Midlands in 1969 and played for a while. I also ran a folk club in Bedworth but then the career took over and I had cut back on my music.

“Since I retired I’ve got back into it, bought myself a new guitar and started performing again.

“I had 18 months performing and acting as compere for a folk club run by Jasper Carrott in Birmingham.

“More recently I was approached by a company in Redditch, Spindrift Records, about putting together a CD and that’s now been done,” he says.

Dave is married to Annice and they have two sons – Neil, who works in Bristol, and Mark who is a chef with his own restaurant in Warwick.

“I get up to Workington about twice a year to see my brother Derek, and recently I went to watch the Reds play at Nuneaton because that’s not far from where I live at Kenilworth.”