Galley slave

I'm sure at one time or another we've all cranked the stereo to 11 and pretended to be Jimmy Page. Or a windmilling Pete Townshend; behind closed doors and with the curtains closed. But quite why anyone would want to impersonate Mel Galley, a second division guitarist with rockers Trapeze and Whitesnake, and tour rock clubs up and down the land signing autographs as Mr. Galley is a story line too silly, you'd have thought, even for Spinal Tap.

However, for years that's precisely what Ken Grimley of Ripley in Derbyshire had been doing. And it was only when Galley, in conjunction with a reporter from the local paper, paid Grimley a visit that the pathetic sham was exposed. However, Galley didn't leave empty handed. As well as a grovelling apology (which it would have been, wouldn't it?) he took away an autograph and one of Grimley's many guitars. An instrument, perversely, Grimley can't play.

Mel Galley sadly died in 2008. Ken Grimley did not.