HARRY Berrey's love affair with the piano began when he was a schoolboy. And now, at the age of 92, and virtually blind, he's busy recording CDs . . . not for commercial consideration, you understand, but for the personal enjoyment of himself and his family.

His latest disc, arriving at the home of his equally musical brother, Ken, of St George's Avenue, St Helens, contains a selection of evergreen hits from Harry's piano-playing dance band heyday.

It was something like 80 years ago, during the grammar school era of Cowley school, St Helens, that Harry's talent for entertaining began to take shape. He was a fellow pupil of the late Robert Dorning, gifted musician, dance band vocalist, ballet dancer and stage, film a TV actor.

The pair got their first taste of showbiz together in a school play, Trial by Jury, in which Harry played the role of the judge and Robert counsel for the prosecution. As a result they were singled out as having great futures in the world of entertainment and Harry, a retired accountant who, with wife Audrey, has lived in Perth, Australia, for about 25 years (they followed their daughter Down Under) got in touch with me to provide fascinating facts about Robert Dorning, a once a well recognised on-screen face but whose name might be unfamiliar to today's generation of armchair viewers and filmgoers.

The Cowley music master of Harry's student era, together with the then headmaster, Gerald Dowse, gave the pair every encouragement, with regular visits to the head's home for show rehearsals. "Bob and I were virtual brothers", says Harry, recalling their shared enthusiasm for performing. While Harry developed his ivories-tinkling skills, Robert concentrated with equal gusto on violin and saxophone.

But on leaving Cowley, Harry settled for the security of an office job at Pilkington Brothers while Robert went to a school of drama and dance in Liverpool, paving the way to a lengthy showbiz career that took in dozens of parts in films, television productions and the live stage.

The lad brought up in a small shop in the heart of St Helens, made a fleeting appearance in the 1986 Bob Hoskins' gangster film, Mona Lisa, and much earlier in his career was a member of the Corps de Ballet in the ground-breaking film, The Red Shoes (1948) starring the exquisite Moira Shearer.

He had countless bit parts in TV classics including Bergerac, The Sweeney and The Avengers, and appeared in prestige productions such as Pride and Prejudice, while at the other end of the showbiz spectrum he popped in and out of such comedy classics as Hancock's Half Hour, Bootsy and Snudge, Dad's Army and Steptoe and Son.

Robert's roles, being generally small and vastly varying, left him with no fear of ever being typecast and he remained actively before the cameras until shortly before his death in 1989, in his mid-70s.

Robert was part of a successful family showbiz trio - daughter Stacey Dorning starring in the hit children's TV series Black Beauty, and wife, Honor, being known to veteran soap watchers for her appearances in Emergency Ward 10.

The Second World War saw both Harry and Robert in RAF uniform but their service years took them along separate paths. Harry relates how he met his wife, then Audrey Unwin, a Londoner serving with the WAAF. "I was posted to Egypt for three years after a two-day honeymoon", says Harry ... jokingly adding: "We had to be re-introduced when I got back".

Today the couple head a family comprising a son, daughter, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Throughout his RAF time, band member Harry helped keep his colleagues entertained with his piano playing prowess; and back in Civvy Street, at the end of the hostilities he played for a number of well known regional dance outfits, including the Bert Webb band of St Helens Co-op ballroom fame and the VCP orchestra which performed at the Court Hall, Wigan.

And even now, with just eight years to go to his century, Harry Berrey's enthusiasm for dance music shows no signs of diminishing.