1. Mike Harding was born on 23 October 1944 and is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist.
20 Facts About Mike Harding
1. 2.
Mike Harding is of Irish Catholic ancestry on his mother's side.
3.
Flight Sergeant Louis Arthur Mike Harding was a prewar RAF airman.
4.
Mike Harding was educated at St Anne's, Crumpsall, and St Bede's College, Manchester.
5.
Mike Harding has written of the abuse inflicted on pupils at St Bede's, a Roman Catholic school.
6.
Mike Harding began performing as a folk singer and as a member of several local Manchester bands in the 1960s, making his first recordings for the Topic label.
7.
Mike Harding began telling jokes between songs, eventually extending them into longer humorous anecdotes which became the main focus of his act.
8.
Mike Harding released his first album, A Lancashire Lad, in 1972, followed by Mrs 'Ardin's Kid in 1974.
9.
Mike Harding played rock and roll with his band, the Stylos, with the Lowe Brothers.
10.
Mike Harding has had many albums and singles released, whilst the latter included "Man 'nited Song".
11.
Mike Harding composed the music scores for Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, The Reluctant Dragon and The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship for Cosgrove Hall Films.
12.
In 1986, Mike Harding wrote the foreword to Barry Pilton's book, One Man and His Bog.
13.
Mike Harding made a series of fourteen short films on minority religions in England for the BBC's Heaven and Earth show.
14.
Four days later, on 30 December 2012, Harding launched his own internet radio show, called The Mike Harding Folk Show broadcast at 5pm every Sunday and available as a podcast and on iTunes afterwards.
15.
Thereafter, commencing on 18 March 2018, Mike Harding was back with a regular monthly slot.
16.
Mike Harding is a dedicated hillwalker and a former president, and now life vice president of the Ramblers' Association.
17.
Mike Harding wrote, until a new format was sought for the magazine in 2008, a regular column for hiking magazine The Great Outdoors and campaigned for 'Right to Roam' legislation in the United Kingdom.
18.
Mike Harding is one of the patrons of the Wensleydale Railway, a group set up to re-open the once mainly derelict line between Northallerton and Garsdale in Yorkshire, near where he now lives.
19.
Mike Harding is the patron of Settle Stories, a charity based in Settle, North Yorkshire, that promotes traditional storytelling and runs the annual Settle Storytelling Festival.
20.
Mike Harding contributed to a promotional leaflet for the Settle tourist board.