KEEN ukele and guitar player Michael Flinter from Poole has died at the age of 77.

Michael Stuart Flinter was born in Gibraltar in 1937, due to his dad being posted there while in the Army.

In 1942 he made the front of the Daily Express and was branded the 'Most travelled boy' having gone around the globe by the age of five.

Following his father's death, his mother moved with him to Poole, where he attended Oakdale School and Poole Grammar School and went on to join in with reunions held by the Poole Old Grammarians Association.

He was given his first ukelele aged five and owned his first guitar at 16, which would help him continue to enjoy a lifetime of links to music.

Mr Flinter played his first professional gig aged 21 and played music in the majority of hotels based in Bournemouth in his spare time.

After school he went to work for fizzy drinks company, Corona, before carrying out his two years of national service with the RAF working on the air radar systems.

When he finished, he became a TV engineer and then from 1966 he was a stay at home dad for his three children from his first marriage, Jason, Tobye and Jolyon.

He met his second wife, Jan, in 1979 and they married at Poole Registry Office, later welcoming their daughter, Eloise, to complete the family of four children.

Mr Flinter later went to work as a sales rep for electrical wholesalers for around 15 to 20 years, while continue to gig in his spare time.

He became chairman of Bournemouth and District Electric Club and also chairman of the Dorset Dyslexia Association. He was a member of Poole Yacht Club and taught all of his children to sail over the years.

Aged 60, he became a self-employed electrical contractor and retired from work aged 70. He studied philosophy classes with the U3A and eventually led the classes himself. He also taught guitar and ukelele lessons, liked to play the ukelele at various ukelele groups in Poole and was a member of the Dorset Police Male Voice Choir.

He was well known for saying 'I have never known what I want to be when I grow up' throughout his life to family and friends.

Mr Flinter died following a year-long illness at Forest Holme Hospice in Poole on October 7. His daughter, Eloise, and her friend, Ellie, shaved their heads to fundraise for the hospice in his memory, which has raised £3,000.

A celebration of his life took place at Bournemouth Crematorium yesterday, in which people were asked to wear red, which was his favourite colour, and donations could be made to the Friends of Forest Holme Hospice.