Taking a very early interest in music, Colin started piano lessons at the age of 6 years. However, it was soon clear that he was not destined to become a concert pianist! His life-long association with brass bands began in 1969 when he attended Raans School in Amersham and was first introduced to brass playing under Salvationist Llewellyn Tiedeman. During this time he became a member of Raans School Brass Band and the Wycombe Youth Band on Eb Bass. Moving with his family to Exmouth in 1971, he went to Exmouth Community College, and joined the church choir of Holy Trinity Church, Exmouth where he studied music under organist and choirmaster Hope Bardrick, and gained Grade VIII in the Theory of Music at 16 years of age. Colin also joined the 14-20’s Music and Drama Society (now Centre Stage) and performed in many stage shows with them. He joined the Lympstone Band on tenor horn in 1972, and in 1974 he was amongst the early ranks of what is now the hugely successful Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra on drums, and later played drums and trumpet with Clyst Vale Big Band under both Stan Hacking and Alan Hempstead. At Exeter College from 1974 – 1976 he studied music to A Level under Sylvia Pritchard (Doidge) playing trumpet and percussion.
Attending C F Mott College of Higher Education in Liverpool in 1976 to study music, art and drama, Colin played drums in the college band ‘The Beagle’s Principal‘ alongside none other than Julian Cope who featured on fretless bass guitar – later famous in his band The Teardrop Explodes and as a solo artist, and keyboard player Paul Rapi – who later formed The Afternoons in South Wales. Sadly, this short spell at University did not result in the award of a degree due to Colin’s apparent misunderstanding of what the subject ‘history of art‘ was about. He says: ‘Perhaps you could have tried to explain it to us properly, Mr Gérard Mermoz, rather than just standing at the back of the class laughing at us’.
Colin joined the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary in 1981, and spent many happy years as a member of the Band of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary under the baton of Keith Whittall RM. During these years, the police band was extremely popular with the public, and performed concerts all over the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and at some huge venues and parades, including London’s Guildhall, Wembley Stadium (the original one), Dartmouth and HMS Raleigh Naval Colleges, and VE Day celebrations in St Helier, Jersey, complete with the Red Arrows and the 
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
He was also fortunate enough in his capacity as Soprano Trumpet of the Fanfare Team to play all over the two counties, including performances for Her Majesty The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Anne the Princess Royal. He was a founder member and Principal Percussionist of the British Police Symphony Orchestra in 1989, and embarked on three national tours of Great Britain with them, including his first ever performance at the Royal Albert Hall.
Colin also spent an all too brief time as a member of the Band of the Devon & Dorset Regiment (TA) in Exeter (now the Salamanca Band and Bugles of the Rifles), and played trumpet/cornet and drums/percussion with them, becoming a regular feature on drums in the Dance Band. He recalls an eventful tour of Guernsey with the band!
In 1996 he rejoined the Lympstone Band having been posted to his home town of Exmouth, where he soon took over the post of Soprano Cornet. In the space of a few years under the idiosyncratic and inspiring baton of Charlie Fleming, (please visit his blog for some amazing wildlife photography) the band won many contests, earned promotion to the 1st Section, and 
became recognised as one of the finest brass bands in the South West. Colin was latterly playing at the opposite end of the band on BBb bass, almost back where he started out in 1969. Colin played with the band when it was promoted to the Championship Section for the first time in its 130 year history – the only band from Devon to have ever achieved this. Having had to leave due to some difficult issues within the band (now resolved), he rejoined the band once more on EEb bass a few years ago, but sadly, the travelling just became too much and too expensive, so in 2022 he sadly had to part company with the band once again.
It was in 1998 whilst
with HMS Heron Volunteer Band that Colin went to the Royal Marines School of Music in Portsmouth and trained to be a Drum Major for the Royal Navy Volunteer Band movement under the wing of the now retired Corps Drum Major of His Majesty’s Royal Marines Band Service Warrant Officer 1 J R ‘Wiggy’ Whitwham MBE RM. In 2000 he won the award for Best Drum Major with Devonport Naval Base Volunteer Band (HMS Drake) at the annual festival in Portsmouth, following this in 2003 when he won the award for Best Solo Instrumentalist, playing his own arrangement of Hugh Nash’s (Goff Richards) Demelza on Soprano Cornet.
Regularly playing with many local bands, Colin became a familiar (and hopefully popular) sight on the concert stage, and one performance on soprano cornet with the City of Exeter Railway Band early in 2004 resulted in him being appointed as their Musical Director, a post he held until 2010.
Whilst still a serving police officer, In 2006 Colin was awarded a 1st Class Honours degree from the Accrington & Rossendale BA (Hons) Band Studies course (Sheffield University) where he had studied conducting and composition under Arthur Butterworth, David Golightly and Richard Evans, and arrangement with Alan Fernie.
It was as a result of taking this degree course that Colin first began working with MF Publications in Switzerland. To date he has done over 350 individual part transpositions for them. He has also produced over 120 arrangements for brass and concert wind bands, which are published on their site together with many original compositions. Sadly, as of September 2024 Colin is no longer working for them, and his new compositions are published by Obrasso Music.
When it was suggested in 2007 that he might like to play drums again in a local rock band, he jumped at the chance and had three happy years drumming in arguably one of Exmouth’s finest groups – Wired. In the last year of his tenure, the band performed upwards of 50 gigs in venues as diverse as Exmouth pubs, to weddings at Powderham Castle, and as support for The Wurzels at The Imperial in Exeter.
Colin’s musical career has been, and continues to be, most fulfilling and varied, and still provides challenges on a daily basis. He’s also had opportunities to work with Tiverton Town Band, Tiverton Concert Band, and Exmouth Town Concert Band, all of whom have performed his compositions and arrangements.
Colin has also enjoyed working with One Life Music since 2011, firstly with the publication of ‘I Believe‘ by One Life Music – a book of inspirational original songs for primary school children written by Dan Callow and David Anderson that he had the privilege of arranging for vocals and piano. He has since been involved in the publication of Dan’s Children’s Mass and Family of Faith projects, and the scoring and arrangements for Dan’s projects – albums of his songs called Let His Glory Shine and We Will Go Out, and more recently: His Goodness Never Fails and Gifts of the Spirit. There are two newer projects: Songs for the Journey, and a youth mass setting- which had to be ratified in Rome…!
In 2014 Colin was appointed as the Principal tuba player of Exeter Symphony Orchestra, and has enjoyed many concerts with them since then, often playing pieces he’d only ever dreamed of performing – Bartok’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ for example. Frequently sharing the stage with some fairly notable soloists, including Raphael Wallfisch on cello, Tamsin Whaley-Cohen on violin, and more recently Ross Knight on tuba.
On the back of his membership of Exeter Symphony Orchestra comes the formation of Resonate Brass – a brass quintet formed from the brass section of the orchestra that plays mainly in and around Exeter, but has also featured in Tisbury with the Cherubim Music Trust.
In November 2015, after their fine performance and well deserved 3rd place at the SWBBA Contest in Torquay, Tiverton Town Band announced Colin’s appointment as their new musical director. Moving to Taunton made this quite a travel for him and he was sadly forced to give up the post, but he has continued to play when required for the band on percussion or Eb Bass, and for the newly formed ‘Tiverton Beer Fest Oompah Band’.
In 2024 after a protracted absence from playing tuba in brass bands, Colin saw an advert for a vacancy on EEb Bass at Weston Brass in Somerset, and duly applied for the post. He was accepted into the fold of what he describes as one of the friendliest bunches of people he’s ever met, but sadly, once again the travelling distances became too much for him, and in December 2024 he had to leave the band. Here in 2025, Colin has recently started playing BBb Bass at Wellington Silver Band – the nearest brass band to him.
Colin also spent several years working with The Cherubim Music Trust as their social media and website editor. This fantastic charity loan high end musical instruments to young gifted musicians at a time in their lives when little other help is available. Top people helping some top students. Colin is glad to have worked with them, and looks forward to listening to more performances with their ‘awardees’ in the future.
Colin has also been involved with coaching for the Devon Youth Wind Orchestra and the Devon Youth Concert and Symphony Orchestras, and says it has been a privilege to be able to pass on at least some of what he has learned over the years. The concert orchestra percussionists loved it when he turned up with his red Premier Resonator drum kit!
