THE original buoy band, the Fisherman’s Friends return to Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts on February 25 with a full catch of new material and some old favourites as well.

Bound together by lifelong friendship and shared experience for more than 20 years the Fisherman’s Friends have met on the Platt in their native Port Isaac on Cornwall’s rugged north coast to raise money for charity by singing the traditional songs of the sea handed down to them by their forefathers.

Fisherman’s Friends said: “We are really looking forward to getting into the fish van again and playing for old friends and making some new ones around the country. We are not very rock n roll, more born to be mild than wild, but we love performing anywhere we can and carrying a little bit of Cornwall with us.”

In 2010 they signed a major record deal and their album Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends went Gold as they became the first traditional folk act to land a UK top ten album. Since then they’ve been the subject of an ITV documentary, released the hit albums One and All (2013) and Proper Job (2015) and played to tens of thousands of fans at home and abroad.

They sang for HM The Queen at her Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012 and were honoured with the Good Tradition Award at the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2011.

The Fisherman’s Friends are brothers John and Jeremy Brown, writer, shopkeeper, bass man and moustachioed MC Jon Cleave, potter Billy Hawkins, smallholder and engineer John ‘Lefty’ Lethbridge, builder John McDonnell (a Yorkshireman who visited Port Isaac more than 30 years ago and never left), fisherman Jason Nicholas and film maker Toby Lobb.

The Fisherman’s Friends have been widely credited with starting the revival of interest in shanty-style choral singing but a cornerstone of their success has been their constantly evolving and expanding repertoire.