Mervin and Jack are booked for Blackpool

The musicians are popular draws on the region's concert circuit and regularly perform at Darlaston Town Hall and village halls, but will next month perform at the prestigious venue, in the resort's famous Winter Gardens.

Since the phone call came from Wolverhampton borough organist Steve Tovey to join him for the concert on July 14, the pair have been overcome with excitement as it will be first time either has performed there.

Now Mr Jones, aged 71, and Mr Williams, 86, are looking forward to entertaining tourists at the event to celebrate the opera house's 70th anniversary.

Mr Williams, of Oxley, Wolverhampton, has spent a lifetime as a professional musician after he successfully auditioned at 14 in 1937 as a drummer for the Jack Lewis Singing Scholars teen band.

The celebrities he shared the bill with over the decades have included Eric Morecambe, Harry Tate, Larry Grayson, Billy Dainty, Brian Mickey and Bloxwich harmonica player Arthur Tolcher, who was regular on the Morcambe and Wise TV show.

Among the highlights was his appearance on Opportunity Knocks after impressing the presenter Hughie Green who watched him at Bird Cage nightclub, in Nantwich.

Mr Williams, of Renton Road, said: "I was performing with Julie Rogers and afterwards Hughie Green came and knocked on my dressing room door and asked me to come on the show. I packed up the drums about 12 months ago, but I keep the xylophone going. I play song classics, popular hits and I encourage the audience to sing along and it seems to go down well. I am 86 and I never thought at this age I would still be performing. Mervin and I work together and for our ages we do OK."

Mr Williams, was born in Wales and grew up near Merthyr Tydfil. He moved to Wolverhampton to live with his aunt Eunice Evans in 1938.

As a skilled toolmaker his trade was a reserved job during the Second World War and his applications to join the armed forces were rejected. He met the love of his life Joan, now aged 84, in 1940 when they both worked at GR Smithsons in Cannock Road. They married at St Mary's Church in Bushbury and have two children Liz, aged 56, and Finder Keepers drummer Dave, aged 58.

"I've had such a long career that everybody says I should write a book. I absolutely enjoy my playing and I hope to carry on until I'm 90," Mr Williams added.

Good friend Mervin Jones led a campaign to keep Darlaston Town Hall open and to restore its Binns organ. He organises monthly lunch time and Saturday night concerts there. He grew up in Bescot Street, Palfrey, in Walsall, and got his first taste of organ playing as a 12-year-old at St Michael's Church in Caldmore nearby. "When I was 13 I wrote to organist Sandy MacPherson who did the BBC Sunday programme Bright and Early to ask if I could play with him.

"He wrote back and said I should get some experience playing entertainment organs and he would give me an audition.

"My dad told me there was a Wurlitzer organ in the Gaumont Theatre in Walsall which was the first in the country. I used to play there on Saturdays. When I go to Blackpool it will have special significance as there is a Wurlitzer there and was the last to be brought to this country.

"So I will have played the first and the last."