92-year-old Bournemouth man finds fame online through singing
Edwin Rayner's become a social media star singing songs for his late wife
A 92-year-old man from Bournemouth has become a TikTok sensation with nearly 500,000 followers and over nine million likes.
Edwin Rayner, otherwise known as ‘Grandad Sings’, does covers of Elvis Presley, Oasis and even Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray.
Safe to say, the lifelong singer didn’t expect to become viral late in life: “I'm pleased. Who wouldn't be pleased? But more than anything I'm surprised, I can tell you that. Absolutely surprised.”
He told us: “There’s a message in this for older people… If you think you're too old, you're not too old.
“If you played the piano or did something you enjoyed but gave it up because you felt you couldn’t do it anymore, I want to tell you, you can so don't give up!”
The lifelong singer gave up his passion almost a decade ago when his late wife Margerat passed as he felt “no reason to carry on”.
Edwin said: “When I lost my wife, I didn't want to sing anymore but I feel she came back to me and said: ‘Edwin, you get on with it. You start singing again and now when I sing, I’m confident she’s there with me.
“She's probably with us now telling me what to say, or what not to say. I do miss her dearly."
Nine years on and the former performer - who’s played at concerts all over Europe and been in pantomimes across the country – sang his favourite songs, by the likes of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, at care homes in Bournemouth.
Then one day his granddaughters told him: ‘We’re going to put you on TikTok grandad’, "TikTok? What's TikTok", he replied.
450,000 followers later, Edwin says: “We thought we were going to get a couple hundred like, but we got close to 5,000 likes and I get hundreds and hundreds compliments now for my singing and people even tell me that I've turned their lives around, it's absolutely wonderful.”
With the help of a local musician, he is recorded at Sizzle Studios singing his favourite tracks, and his granddaughters upload it to social media one track a week.