This is a story about my bank manager. I posted it on Facebook a week ago and it has got 600 likes so far. Several people remember the man with fondness. Read the full story below.

I had been tidying up my email and came across a message from 2 years ago that I had missed. It took me back 45 years and is quite a story. Around 1981 I was newly married. I was instructed to toddle off to the bank and acquire a mortgage with which to buy ourselves a house. So off I went to my bank: Lloyds in Tynemouth (pictured above) and had a cosy chat with the manager. I remember his very words. He said he “would be doing me (a struggling songwriter) no favours to saddle me with a mortgage”. So what’s a struggling songwriter to do: come up with a hit that’s what. And that’s what happened, a massive top twenty hit. And that opened a whole series of doors and shed loads of my songs got recorded and released. And then the royalties started to flow and I was suddenly on first name terms with the bank manager. We got the Mortgage and “Ray” gave me a whole heap of help and advice. Eventually, he retired and I moved on but I’ve never forgotten his kindness.

So back to the email. It was from the son-in-law of the former manager of Lloyds bank in Tynemouth who had died some years ago. Now that his wife had also passed away this son in law was disposing of their belongings. Amongst the bank manager’s things he found a cassette tape and a note from me. This has now been returned to me and the note is below

I’m touched to learn that he kept the note and the cassette all those years right up to the end of his life.

As you can say the cassette and the note (above) have been returned to me.