Tributes have been paid to singer and Chippenham Folk Festival stalwart Johnny Collins who has died aged 71.

Mr Collins is best known as a singer of maritime songs and sea shanties and had become a resident singer at the festival in Chippenham for last ten years.

He was a frequent performer on mainland Europe and he achieved his greatest triumph in 1983 when he and his frequent singing partner Jim Mageean, won an eastern European version of the Eurovision song contest.

A spokesman for the Chippenham Folk Festival said: “We ‘adopted’ Johnny as a resident singer at the Festival some ten years ago and have always found his contribution valuable and gave a common grounding to participation and singing.

“We will all miss him dearly and will do what we can to keep his memory alive at the next festival and in subsequent years.”

Born in Norfolk, Mr Collins was adopted by a Belfast-born railwayman and his wife, a music teacher from Norwich.

He left school at 16 and two years later joined the army - at first the Royal Engineers, but then transferring to the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Stationed in London in 1958, he came across the jazz and folk clubs of the West End, learned to play the guitar, and sang alongside the jazz guitarist Diz Disley and the blues singer Long John Baldry.

He is survived by his partner, Joyce Squires, and two children, Carol and Michael from an earlier marriage.