SELF-TAUGHT harmonica player Phil Irving is to retire after decades of entertaining audiences.
Mr Irving, a Second World War veteran, started playing the instrument when he was just eight-years-old with a harmonica he bought for 6d.
He went on to join the Ted Levitt Show Band, in York, and played with them for 20 years.
"I clearly remember my audition," said Mr Irving, 79. "I answered an advertisement that the band was looking for a harmonica player and Ted gave me a job when he heard me play Raindrops Are Falling On My Head down the phone."
During the Second World War he took part in Operation Manna when Lancaster aircraft dropped 28 million pounds of food to starving people in Nazi-occupied Western Holland.
Mr Irving continued to play in his retirement after being proprietor for 23 years of Hill's Boatyard, in York.
He has given scores of concerts entertaining at the Rowntree Theatre, in York, and many venues in Ryedale and has collected donations for St Catherine's Hospice, Scarborough.
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