Borderland Rotary Club welcomed Oswestry’s own Ukulele Man, John Croft, a former President of the Borderland Club and well-known character around the town. John gave a very entertaining talk about himself, his long fascination with all things Ukulele and a surprising connection he made along the way.
He explained how George Harrison, from the Beatles had framed his life in the 1990s and why he had kept quiet about it for as long as possible. He said, “I’ve always loved to play the Uke, and to talk with likeminded people about the instrument, but one day the phone rang and a man with a soft Liverpool accent said, ‘Hi John, it’s George Harrison here. I’d like to talk to you about playing the ukulele’. Well, you can imagine my shock – suddenly talking to one of my heroes from the legendary band, the Beatles. And it just got better; he came to Oswestry to visit me in my house in Jasmine Gardens, Oswestry, and after a few months a genuine friendship developed. Over the next eleven years, I visited (and stayed!) with George at his home, Friar Park, near Henley-on-Thames, on a number of occasions, and he even came to stay overnight with Mary and I in Llanyblodwel – where, at his suggestion, we went for a short drink at ‘The Horseshoe’. To our amazement, we were invited to Portmeirion Hotel for part of the filming of ‘The Beatles Anthology’. During one visit to Friar Park, George gave me the most beautiful vintage Gibson Banjolele – which I treasure. It always seemed really strange that a schoolteacher from Oswestry would become friends with one of the most famous people in the world”.
Harrison’s earliest musical influences were George Formby (from the age of 14) and Django Reinhardt before he discovered Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry, and although most people think of John Lennon and Paul McCartney as the songwriters in the Beatles, George wrote some wonderful songs including, ‘Taxman’, ‘While my guitar gently weeps’, ‘Something’, and ‘Here comes the Sun’. After the Beatles he explored many forms of music with
his first success being, ‘My Sweet Lord’ and later he formed supergroup, the Travelling Wilburys, with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. When at home, George would play the uke around his house, all the time, said friends.
“I kept quiet about our friendship for many years”, John continued, “as George and I shared a musical interest – not a commercial endeavour. I finally decided to write about what happened in my new book, ‘The Uke, the Beatle, and Me’ because I wanted my family and friends to know the story, and especially to tell readers that, putting aside his fame and fortune, what a genuinely kind, thoughtful, humorous, and lovely man I found George Harrison to be.
John buys and sells instruments and has written a number of books about them. His new book is available from his website at theukuleleman.com, by email at theukuleleman.com@gmail.com, and from the ‘Local Interest’ section in Booka Bookshop in Church Street, Oswestry.
George Harrison and John Croft at their first meeting in 1990.
John in 2025 with the Ukelele that George gave him and the book.
The cover of the book.
John Croft, Gail Harris (a good friend), Mary Croft, George, and Jimmy Nail (Saturday April 27th, 1991, Jasmine Gardens).
