DANIEL Mays plays a better looking version of him in the Fisherman’s Friends film and Gregor Fisher’s downtrodden manager character in 2003’s Love Actually may have been based on him.

But now the former farmer and secret hit maker, Ian W Brown, is going back to his roots this month to play Ringwood Folk Club at its new home in the WI Hall on Crow Lane.

Having taken his first steps as a performer in the 1980s with performances at the club's singaround nights, it’s now 20 years since Ian gave up the muddy life of a pig farmer after deciding he stood a better chance of being happy and making a living by swimming against the tide in the shark-infested waters of the music business while trying to save the world with a song.

In those two decades he has managed artists, released records, co-written a number one single and the lead song in a West End hit, toured the UK, played Glastonbury, co-produced hit films, won friends and influenced people… and now he’s writing a book!

This spring saw the incredible true story of how he signed and managed the Fisherman’s Friends to a £1 million major label record deal and into the top ten album chart in 2010 turned into a heartwarming film that is already the feel good hit of the year. What’s more, he still manages and is very much friends with the fishermen. That was followed by Wild Rose, the acclaimed British musical drama starring Jessie Buckley and Julie Waters about a singer from Glasgow who dreams of country music stardom, for which Ian co-wrote some of the music.

Now he’s returning to the stage to play some of his songs that have graced the charts and so many more that haven’t.

* Catch him on Tuesday, June 25 at 8pm at Ringwood Folk Club. See ringwoodfolk.org.uk

(Ian W Brown is the only known pig farmer to be nominated for an Ivor Novello Award).