Featured Singer: Tim Colston

TIM COLSTON

Although born in Somerset, where Tim spent much of his early childhood, he has lived in Maidstone on and off for almost 60 years.  Tim comes from a musical family – his dad sang with MCU, and he got into singing early through his school choir at Maidstone Grammar School. Tim has fond memories of the choir and the music leadership provided by David Cutforth and Jeffrey Weaver. There he met Dennis Fuller, forming a lifelong friendship, and together they joined the Weald Singers- an accomplished chamber choir – which also included Marian Weller (small world!). Tim’s first interest was the violin, and he was an enthusiastic member of chamber groups and the school orchestra. At about this time Tim and Dennis played their parts in a small guitar /vocal group, winning a local talent contest and performing at venues as glittering as Wormshill!

Tim left Maidstone to study for an HND in business studies with languages at Stockport. This signalled a change in his music making, as a rich vein of music was explored with the college rugby club! As Tim leads us in social singing (the clean versions!), we have good reason to be grateful for this part of his music education. Stockport was followed by working for a fruit juice company in Macon – the middle of the Burgundy wine region. Tim translated technical articles, with occasional hilarious results! Extracting fruit juices was not Tim’s cup of tea, and he then dabbled in commercial sales – equally unfruitful. At that point, out of the blue, an opportunity arose to become a loss adjuster, and Tim had found a job that he enjoyed, and continued with until his retirement.

In 1974, Tim met Cynthia at a party in Chatham – just before Cynthia moved to Switzerland to work. Trips to Switzerland ensued and Tim and Cynthia married in 1978, upon her return. They have two children, Harriet and Alex, who are musical and encourage Tim to get his violin out and play with them – Harriet plays the guitar and sings.

Working abroad, marriage, and raising a family meant that Tim was not much involved in the local music scene, but that changed in the early 80s when he joined MCU. Tim has sung with them for almost 30 years. Tim is a fine singer, unflappable, with a great sense of humour and is a founder member of TMS.

Now retired Tim looks forward to playing golf, but he recently fell down a rabbit hole while on the golf course – no trip to Wonderland with Alice, but a shoulder injury that required surgery. Once recovered he looks forward to golf and touring with Cynthia in their motor caravan.