Who remembers a local band called The Telham Tinkers? And if you remember the band do you remember its members and in particular Pete Titchener?

Pete was born in 1954 and grew up in West St Leonards but in 1991 he left the UK to head down under and it was in Australia that he made his name as a musician and enjoyed a career that has taken him around the world, sharing stages with some of the biggest names in the world of folk.

Pete says: “From the mid 70s to mid 80s I was involved in the Black Horse Folk Club at Telham and I was a member of The Telham Tinkers, we were the resident band. In fact it was a venture into the Black Horse Folk Club as a curious 16-year-old that sparked my interest in this thing call ‘folk’.”

When he headed down under he moved to Adelaide in South Australia – that was in January 1991 and Pete immediately sought out the local folk scene.

“Through a progression of various bands I found myself touring the UK and Europe several times with five piece band Colcannon and it was great to come back ‘home’ when we performed at St Mary In The Castle and The Manor Barn in Bexhill.

“In 2013 I was back in the UK again, this time on tour with Munro O’Callaghan Titchener and once again we performed at the Manor Barn,” says Pete.

These days he works with the legendary Scottish Singer/Songwriter Eric Bogle, who now also calls Australia home.

In between tours with Eric Pete also performs solo, with his solo gigs tending to be what he describes as,  “more comedic in nature”.

Nearly 30 years after relocating to Australia he is still on the road, in addition to several interstate concerts this year he has also toured New Zealand for two weeks and he has just returned from headlining the Top Half Folk Festival near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia which is a three day drive from his home in Adelaide.

One critic, describing Pete as ‘the feature artist’ for the festival said of his performance: “Pete… has shared the stage with the likes of Eric Bogle and Colcannon over his career. Performing two sets over the weekend Titchener had the audience wrapped around his little finger with his beautiful and funny songs and hilarious onstage banter.”