'Our nursery rhyme business began in a bedroom'

When Phil Waddington first began recording cassettes of nursery rhymes in a Lancashire bedroom in 1984, little did he know he would still be doing it 40 years later.

The musician and his late business partner Michael Ratcliffe began making songs for pre-school children with a tape called Musical Rhyme Time, recorded in Ratcliffe's home in St Annes.

Four decades and several generations of children later, their YouTube channel has attracted 750,000 subscribers.

"Songs like Wheels on the Bus and Wind the Bobbin Up are as popular now as they were 40 years ago," said Waddington, reflecting on the channel's cross-generational appeal.

"You know, the fads have come and gone, but everybody still likes the old favourites."

Waddington, 58, said their adventure began one weekend after he came back home from Lancaster University, where he had been studying classical music, and was inspired when Ratcliffe asked him to listen to some curious new music.

Ratcliffe and Waddington's sister Alison Chard had recorded it on a reel-to-reel machine in a back bedroom at Ratcliffe's home.

"I thought it would be some pop tune but it was Humpty Dumpty, Sing a Song of Sixpence and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star - and I thought, oh, okay, there's something in this maybe," he said.

Waddington said he later declined an offer to study classical music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, choosing instead to devote his time to starting a children's music business.

"I could have been an opera singer but I thought, let's have a go with producing children's music and make it work and I have never regretted it," he said.

They went on to produce 20 tracks using a guitar, keyboard and drum machine.

The cassettes, produced through their company CRS Records, went on to be stocked in high street stores across the country, including Woolworths.

Waddington, of Wesham, said the company evolved to produce CDs and DVDs and now does online streaming and produce content on YouTube.

"We try to put a more modern slant on it and that was what we tried to do right from the start with children's music," he said.

The musician, who is married and has three stepchildren, said: "There are two generations of kids we've influenced.

"I'm now lucky enough to have two wonderful grandchildren and the eldest, Fred, loves his grandpa's songs.

"The business continues to grow and change but the stuff we recorded 40 years ago is still out there."

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