When she was 89, Barbara McInnis took her first drum lesson. Walking into teacher Chris Joyce’s Morecambe studio, she sat behind the kit, picked up a pair of sticks and began to hit the kit that surrounded her. “I was very nervous but once I got going, it was joyous,” she says. “I made a wonderful racket that I haven’t been able to stop since.”
Six months on from that first lesson, McInnis is known locally as the “90-year-old drummer” and can often be found at Morecambe pubs playing gigs with groups such as the D’Ukes of Lancaster Ukulele Band and Garstang Ukulele Group. “I see Chris every week or two for a lesson and we work through whatever songs are on my gig set list,” she says. “I’m trying to channel my inner Ringo Starr.”
