Trumpet player who loved the showbiz side of his career as he entertained at Blackpool's Tower Ballroom and the Winter Gardens

Include me in! Saturday nights, dressed up to the nines with 3,000 others, cruising around in front of a 17-piece band.

Blackpool has two of the world's finest ballrooms, the Tower and the Empress in the Winter Gardens, but in the 1950s there were three major dance venues. The Palace ballroom theatre and cinema, on the block north of the Tower, closed in 1961 and was redeveloped.

Five years later the Mecca group finally got a foot in Blackpool by opening the Locarno, in Central Drive.

This brings us to the point of this week's article.

Trumpeter Terry Reaney, who has recently retired, is possibly the only musician to have played in bands in all three venues - Empress, Tower and Locarno.

Our main photo shows Terry entertaining his neighbours during the recent Covid19 lockdown.

Terry, of St Annes, has been reminiscing about his long career in star bands and as a music teacher in Blackpool and Fylde schools.

It began in his native Sheffield, playing cornet in a Salvation Army band. However, it didn't last long.

"The director was strict and wouldn't allow his members to play in any other bands," says Terry.

He joined a local brass band and sat in with small dance bands before turning pro at 17, playing in Mecca bands at Nottingham and Leeds before moving to Ilford.

In 1956 Terry began his National Service, playing in the Band of the Royal Engineers and in the regimental dance band. After "demob" in 1959 he joined the famous Ken Mackintosh band.

"My first day with the band was in the recording studio. We recorded the theme for the ITV show No Hiding Place, with the Post Horn Gallop as the flip side."

Terry spent five years with Ken, as lead trumpeter and vocalist, including the band's three summer seasons in Blackpool's Empress Ballroom, 1960-62.

After a break from music, Terry was recruited by Tower Ballroom bandleader Charles Barlow and was with Charlie for two years until a new opportunity came round. It was the new Blackpool Locarno.

He joined as lead trumpeter and deputy to bandleader David Ede. Within weeks tragedy struck and Ede was drowned in a boating accident off Fleetwood. The band members voted for who they wanted to take over.

"I may have been the only democratically bandleader," he says.

"I loved the the showbiz element, like welcoming and introducing Mecca's Miss World."

After six years he moved in 1972 to the Ritz in Manchester and then joined the orchestra on the QE2 for six Caribbean cruises.

Having moved with his wife, Brenda, and family to St Annes, the late 1970s saw Terry leading a seven-piece combo in five summer seasons at Pontin's at Squires Gate.

He also freelanced at the BBC with the Northern Dance Orchestra and gave private music lessons through some of the leading Blackpool and Fylde schools.

In 1989 he was recommended by the NDO's Les Howard to bandleader Syd Lawrence and he toured with the Lawrence band for 15 years, including concerts at Blackpool's Grand Theatre.

We've looked back, briefly, at a remarkable musical career.