A VICTIM of theft is thanking his friends who drummed up cash to help him play again.

Steve Mutter’s five-tonne shipping container was stolen from a patch of land in Weymouth sometime between last November and New Year’s Day.

It left Mr Mutter not only without his beloved conga drums, but also the gear to make them – a hobby he hoped to return to in his retirement.

In May, his friend and bandmate Ady Millward came forward and set up a Just Giving page to help get Mr Mutter back behind the drums.

The funding drive has proved successful and last month Mr Millward drove Mr Mutter to Cardiff to collect a £1,000 set of conga drums.

And, in a strange twist of fate, it turns out Mr Mutter was already familiar with his new conga drums – he’d actually made them.

Mr Mutter said: “I would like to thank all the musicians from Weymouth that helped to get the money together.

“But a special thanks goes out to Ady Millward and Coreena Savage, who were both fantastic through the whole thing.

“So far, I’ve said to everybody that if they do any charity

event I’ll play, no questions asked.”

The 65 year-old used to make conga drums out of a workshop in Weymouth but sold the site several years ago and moved his

equipment into the shipping container.

The conga drums he was helped to buy were a set he had made himself, when working under the business name Natal, just less than 20 years ago.

He said: “Years ago, when I was into making them, I had made a set completely myself – a really nice set.

“I brought them home, and a friend from Reading came down to see me.”

After his friend asked whether he could buy the congas, Mr Mutter’s inner-businessman kicked in and he them for £1,800.

But this was in the understanding that, should he ever wish to sell them, he would come to Mr Mutter first.

This year, after he had lost his shipping container, he received a call from the friend he had sold the set to nearly 20 years ago.

Mr Mutter said: “He had been keeping them at home, afraid to use them.

“So he called me to sell them back, but this put me in an awkward situation as I was no longer working.

“I said I would love to have them, but he would have to

give me time to the money together.

“The drums play brilliantly, I’m so pleased with them and to have a set I made with my own bare hands.”