On Saturday, I swallowed my first night nerves and played my first gig for decades.

I’ve played in bands for as long as I can remember.

That started at school, back in the late 1980s when my first teenage group was called The Pulse: ‘nothing to do with lentils’, the compere announced at our first gig.

This morphed in Heartland, a fourpiece inspired by the likes of Simple Minds and U2, attempting to play stadium rock to four people in the back of a pub.

At university, I joined a jazz-funk collective called Bassment when acid jazz was, if not all the rage, then cool among a certain set.

That was my free ticket into balls I couldn’t afford and parties I wouldn’t otherwise have been invited.

From there, I switched from playing guitar to playing bass, and a last shot at stardom at the height of Britpop with a guitar band called Cab.

Creation Records, home of Oasis, came down to watch, but didn’t follow up. Close, but no cigar.

After that, my life took a different direction. I’d started writing while the rest of the band were still asleep and eventually got a book deal for my first novel about playing in a band (maybe those years weren’t wasted after all).

Fast forward almost thirty years and it was during Covid that I started playing music again.

I bought an acoustic bass guitar and passed lockdown by playing along to records.

A few months ago, I bought a second-hand electric double bass off eBay: it might look a bit like some sort of weapon you’d find on the frontline, but makes a surprisingly pleasing sound, even when I’m playing it.

That was the final piece in the jazz jigsaw. Together with my girlfriend, Cathy and good friend Andy, we’ve formed Centrepiece, named after the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross song, and worked up a ninety-minute set of jazz and blues standards.

On Saturday, we played at a fundraising event for Salisbury Hospital’s Stars Appeal, and despite our performance, they still managed to raise more than £600.

Back in the day, I played in the hope that one day I might make it big.

These days, it’s more about enjoying yourself, enjoying the music, and if we can help raise money for charity in the process, then so much the better.

Once I got past those nerves on being back on stage, then that magic of playing music came alive again. I’d forgotten what that buzz was like.

Afterwards, the band talk was about trying to find a drummer, and where we might play next. So if you know any good causes in need of a group, get in touch.