He lost the first finger of his left hand while preparing food for sheep, and he temporarily switched to melodeon before returning to the fiddle.
He attributed his musical style in part to the time he spent with Geordie Armstrong, a shepherd who was also a fiddler.
[2] He won competitions at Northumbrian Gatherings in the early 1950s, and he was recorded by Peter Kennedy for the BBC in 1954, playing both fiddle and melodeon.
[citation needed] He was a founding member of the Border Strathspey and Reel Society, based at Langholm in Dumfriesshire.
[citation needed] In 1983, he recorded Harthope Burn, with the mouth organ player Will Atkinson and the piper Joe Hutton.