SINGER-songwriter Gordon Haskell, right, is on his way back to Bournemouth for his first UK gig in almost seven years.

It’s 12 years since he claimed a famous victory for the underdog, notching up a hit single from nowhere with How Wonderful You Are.

Only kept from the top spot at Christmas 2001 by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman, it was Radio 2’s most-requested record of all time and has been a mainstay of laid-back acoustic compilation albums ever since.

But the music business proved to be too much business and not enough music for Gordon.

In 2008 he left his Dorset home for the Greek island idyll of Skopelos, best known as the location for the film version of Mamma Mia.

Many thought he had retired, but he still found time to tour Poland annually and he continued writing songs.

In 2010 he made a new album, One Day Soon, in which he shared his view of the world from his hillside home and reclaimed his Greek heritage, acknowledging his professor father’s surname Hionides.

On December 11 Gordon will play a show at the De La Salle Theatre at St Peter’s School, Southbourne, that will reunite him with his one-time musical partner, former Paul McCartney and Pretenders guitarist Robbie McIntosh for the first time in a decade.

It should be a great show.