Here is a list of all our Wirral Ukulele Club members. Some have been coming for so long that we can’t remember what year it was!
Swifty
Swifty started playing when he was 2 years-old. Not the ukulele, just playing in the garden. He loved to play in the garden, often climbing the trees and hiding from his mother. This was a game, he wasn’t frightened of his mother or anything. When he left school he went to Cambridge University to study quantum mechanics. These days he mainly studies birds and rabbits at his holiday caravan in Skegness.
Wendy
When Wendy isn’t playing the ukulele at Wirral Ukulele Club, she is a football journalist for the Guardian newspaper. There have been many complaints about her bias toward Everton Football Club, particularly when they’ve won and she closes the article with Come On You Blues!
Dave
Dave began his adult life working in a coal mine in Wales but once he’d saved up enough money he took flying lessons and is now a long-haul pilot for British Airways. Finding himself stuck in a hotel in Hong Kong he started to play the ukulele to pass the time away. Sometimes he plays his ukulele and sings a song to his passengers just before take off.
Anne
You may have seen Anne on TVs The Great British Bakeoff. It was a memorable episode as Anne cooked egg and chips and the judges weren’t amused I can tell you. Anne’s parents are also keen on cookery although on a much grander scale. They own and run the Greggs bakery chain empire, so it’s free cheese pasties for all our Wirral Ukulele Club members.
Andy
When I think of jazz, I think of Andy. He has so many great stories from when he was living in New York and hanging out with Miles Davis and Roy Castle. For a while he had the legendary bass player Tommy Tulips Mulberry living at his apartment, and he also became a great friend of Tom Wolfe the author of Bonfire of the Vanities. It was this association that lead him to write his first novel Whoa Check Out The Uke Player! Andy spends most of his free time these days at Ronnie Scott’s in London, and was recently jamming with the Buddy Rich Big Band.
Angela
Angela is a keen mountaineer in her spare time and was recently at the top of K2. When she isn’t climbing mountains or playing her ukulele she is busy roller skating along the Wirral promenade. Her outfit for this activity is head to toe flourescent yellow, so if you see her say hello!
Andrew
It’s always difficult to say too much about Andrew as he used to work for MI6. If you ask him what were some of the missions he worked on he always says ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,’ which always makes us laugh, until he says ‘no, I’m being serious!’ Long since retired, he now spends most of his day trying to master Small Adjustments, a particularly challenging song at Wirral Ukulele Club.
Em
Everyone knows Em as she’s regularly busking outside the Light Cinema in New Brighton. Last Saturday she earned two hundred quid in three hours. Unfortunately it was mainly in coins. She has busked in countries all over the world. When she was busking in California, Rod Steward listened to her for a while and asked her to join his group but she’s not really into his music so declined the offer.
Robin
Not everyone has an interesting job and being a forklift truck driver may not sound very interesting. And yet, every year there is a competition for the best forklift truckdriver in the UK. It’s a challenging event that requires great skill as they move pallets around in the tightest of spaces. Well, guess who won? Not Robin, but he entered! He wasn’t that bothered because being a Wirral Ukulele Club member is all that really matters to him. His wife says he’s the Les Dawson of the ukulele but he knows she’s secretely jealous of his talent.
Meryl
Meryl used to be a professional dancer back in the day and so it seemed an obvious choice to put her in charge of group choreography. She’s very demanding and insists on absolute precision. A member of Wirral Ukulele Club now for several decades, she enjoys playing most of the group repertoire but playing Christmas songs in July is her happy place.
Paul
Paul is perhaps our most famous member but not obviously famous. Not someone that you’d recognise on the street, but as someone who wrote the hit pop song Tiger Feet by Mud makes him something of star. He’s very modest and doesn’t like to mention it but the group insist that the song is part of our repertoire. Besides writing pop songs, Paul enjoys ballroom dancing and golf.
Ami (pronounced Amee, not Amy)
If dedication were chocolates then Ami would own Thorntons. Every Thursday for more than a year, Ami would travel from Mumbai to New Brighton to join our class. It meant everything to her as becoming a musician was something she had longed to become. Well, she has become quite the musician. Not only a member of Wirral Ukulele Club but also the conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. This has proved a real bonus for our members as we get tickets half price.
Bethan
Perhaps our only member to have visited Hawaii where she bought her first ukulele. Returning to the UK and smitten by it’s lovely tones, she would take it everywhere with her, including her workplace. As a barrister this didn’t go down too well in court, and countless judges threatened to have her barred unless she stopped playing while proceedings were ongoing. A lively character who likes to stand on the chairs in our class and completely flip out. This is acceptable in the faster numbers but wholly inappropriate in ballads.
Julie
Julie spent a considerable part of her life living in Reno, Nevada, riding the broncs. An incredibly dangerous activity but one in which she excelled at. Even now she occasionally yells out ‘ye hah’ in class, which to be honest is a bit embarrasing. Since moving back to the UK, Julie spends most of her time these days riding quad bikes on the New Brighton dunes, and is a member of the British skydiving team.
Gaynor
Her first time joining the class, and she tells this joke…I saw this woman spill all her Scrabble letters on the road, so I asked her ‘What’s the word on the street?’
Hi Gaynor and welcome to the group
Steff
What will tomorrow bring? Ask Steff, she is a mind reader. Occasionally she will bring her crystal ball to the class and we’ll ask what lies in the future for us. Then she goes a bit weird and says something like ‘I see a gig at New Brighton Pavilion, but only three members are there.’ Unbelievably, the following week we got offered a gig at the Pavilion theatre and only three of us were there. As well as reading minds, Steff loves Formula 1 racing and is a big fan of Max Verstappen.
Lindsey
When you meet Lindsey you will probably start thinking ‘where have I seen this girl before?’ Well, Dragon’s Den, that’s where. And boy did she create a stir. Instead of having Dragons in the den, she suggested they could simply ask an artificial intelligence model what it thought of an idea. If it thought the idea was good, it could be offered to the general puplic and it would go to the highest bidder. That way, some ordinary folk could make a few quid as it was clear that the Dragons had quite enough thank you very much. Even Evan Davis lost his cool in the interview at the end ‘Christ on a bike, Lindsey, that was a bit strong wasn’t it!?’
Jen
What’s that smell? It must be Jen! Now then, don’t be thinking I’m being unkind here, Jen is a perfume designer and she always smells lovely. She designed a scent called GCEA as a homage to the ukulele but it didn’t really take off. She’s currently working a new fragrance called Our Souls. I’m guessing the name will change. When she’s not designing perfume or playing the ukulele she likes to travel; not great distances just locally on the bus.
Kathy
Kathy retired when she was 29 having made an absolute killing in the stock market. I asked her what she invested in but she wouldn’t tell me, so I’m guessing it was something well dodgy. She’s very talented and is currently working on a musical called Buy! Sell! She played me a few songs from it. I hate really talented people. Forgot to mention that she drives a Lamborghini. Unecessary ostentation.
Marie
You know that saying…saving the best to last? Well that doesn’t apply here! I’m just joking, Marie! So, Marie….she’s so kind she forgives you for forgetting to put her on the site when I can hardly forgive myself! Not just kindness to humans though, she’s super kind to animals too. Looking after animals is her job, she works at Chester Zoo looking after the tigers. When it’s time for lunch she pulls out her ukulele and sings Tiger Feet to the tigers, that’s how kind she is! When she’s not taming the tigers she’s off in her mobile home, which is a bit smart. I feel I have to make the point that the mobile home is only one of her vehicles, actually owns seven cars, the best one being a Porche Carrera which has a ukulele painted on the bonnet.
Honourable mentions for two Wirral Ukulele Club members no longer with us: Jim and Barbara. Very lucky to have met these wonderful people and will always be in our thoughts 
Dishonourable mentions for people who had the audacity to leave us…
Roger: Who I taught from the age of 7 and then left and started his own ukulele group in Hoylake or somewhere similarly snobbish. Joking aside, a top man, who did actually start his own ukuele group.
George and Paul: Obviously not that George and Paul because George is dead! No, this is George and Paul from Bootle, who travelled to the Wirral for over a year to join in the fun. Two really lovely people and very sad to see them go but totally understood why. Unforgettable moment…George gives me a ukulele that he made! Then gives me another one to auction for the Brightside charity! Staggering kindness. Forgot to mention they’re a lad and dad team!
Manisha: A great gal who went missing when the pandemic came to an end. She keeps saying she’s coming back but probably won’t now. What a shame, a really key member from the beginners class, clever, and very funny. You are missed Manisha!
Brian, Mike, Vicki, and Elaine: More cheekiness here, left, started their own group. They keep asking to come back, I’m thinking about it.