WILTSHIRE has its fair share of celebrities who decide to come to the county to escape the hustle and bustle of London but once they are here they prefer to keep themselves to themselves.

So it is nice when a home-grown talent makes it big. Jazz player Jamie Cullum is a former pupil of Grittleton House School and Sheldon School, Chippenham, who has just signed a £1 million recording contract.

Luckily for Swindon Jazz Festival the organisers had signed Jamie up to play long before his amazing rise to stardom.

At the preview on Friday morning he played background music while the invited great and the good clinked their coffee cups and took little notice.

But they were soon flocking for his autograph when it was announced he had signed a record contract and would be appearing on the Parkinson show on Saturday night.

Jamie does in fact no longer live in Wiltshire but is enjoying the bright lights of London. No doubt in a few years time he will back enjoying the peace and quiet of the countryside in a Sting-style mansion surrounded by acres of rolling parkland.

But it is great for Wiltshire that a young and gifted person has made it to the big time.

Wiltshire is often the forgotten county. The place that people drive through on their way to what they perceive is somewhere better.

But Wiltshire is a fantastic county and we should all be proud of Jamie.