When lifelong singer Edwin Rayner lost his wife of 60 years, he felt there was no reason to carry on.
Now, almost a decade on, the 92-year-old has almost half a million followers on TikTok.
“I was given a message and I’m sure it was Margaret telling me: ‘You can sing, come on you need to start again.’ So I did.”
He started off singing at care homes near his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, often performing songs by his favourite artist – Elvis Presley.
Then he said one day his granddaughters came along and told him they were getting him on TikTok.
“I had no idea what it was and after a few days I had over one thousand likes,” he said.
“Big-headed of me I thought well, we’ll do some more of this, and it’s gone on and on from there.”
Known on social media as Grandad Sings, the grandfather-of-five has nearly nine million views on TikTok and another 150,000 followers on Instagram.
With the help of a local musician, he is recorded at Sizzle Studios singing his favourite tracks, and his granddaughters upload it to social media one track a week.
“I made a Christmas album last year, I’ve just finished my eighth album. They’re for friends and family, I can’t sell them due to copyright”, he says.
While he’s always been a singer, at 18, Edwin was stationed to North Africa between 1950 and1952 as an RAF medic. He then went on to run a successful business selling tropical fish in Tenerife.
When asked what his secret is, Edwin says that luck has something to do with it, but it’s his wife and family who have kept him going.
“Age doesn’t matter. People think at 90, 92, you’re finished, you’re not. Keep doing whatever you want to do. Only do it more so,” he said.
Edwin’s favourite song is The Wonder of You by Elvis Presley, which he sings in honour of his wife, Margaret.
“I feel that she’s with me, she’s there all the time. She’s probably watching right now telling me what to say, or what not to say. I miss her.”
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