By ALAN CALVERT, Industrial Editor A BOLTON business has been helping generations of local people make music - beautiful and otherwise - for 50 years.

Harker & Howarth (Music) Ltd, which was founded by Tom Harker and Jack Howarth in October,1946, continues to be a traditional family concern with loyal customers.

Mr Harker died, aged 70, in 1986 and Mr Howarth, aged 67, in 1991.

They have been succeeded as joint managing directors - in best dynastic fashion - by their sons Charlie Harker (51) and John Howarth (46). Mr Howarth's wife Adele and Charlie's son Robert (24) both work full-time in the Folds Road store and Mrs Mary Howarth, Jack's widow, helps out part-time on Fridays and Saturdays.

Charlie's mother Lily also continues to take an interest in a business which is always in tune with the times.

John and Charlie remember the financial benefits of the beat boom and specific periods of interest in organ music and keyboards.

At the moment the "Brit Pop" phenomenon led by the likes of Oasis is stimulating sales of electric guitars as local bands proliferate.

"The guitar market is almost like it was in the 1960s, but not quite," says John, a musician who used to play at the Navada with the Phil Foster Band. These days he performs on keyboards in the Bolton-based Dave John Band, which features Adele as vocalist.

Tom Harker was taught the piano at the age of eight by a lady music teacher who lived next door - and knocked on the wall whenever he played a wrong note.

By the time he was 16 he had appeared on BBC radio as a soloist on both guitar and banjo.

Two years later he taught eight-year-old Jack Howarth how to play the banjo and Jack later went on to wartime service playing the tenor saxophone and clarinet in the Oscar Rabin orchestra.

After the war the two ex-servicemen met again and opened the first Harker and Howarth shop in Great Moor Street, trading in band and orchestral instruments which were mostly second-hand.

After two years they moved into the Arcade and traded from there until it made way for the Arndale (now Crompton Place) in 1969.

A shop was then opened in Churchgate and it operated for 20 years until high rents forced a decision to concentrate the business entirely in the Folds Road premises which the company has occupied for many years. The new generation in charge runs it as a "one-stop music store" for all musical needs, including the restoration of pianos and repairs to instruments.

Charlie and John estimate that at the moment they are selling something like 500 guitars a year and hundreds of other instruments.

Electronic digital pianos are particularly popular at the moment.

Charlie said they were part of Euro Music, a company established by 12 of the biggest dealers in the country to import musical instruments at cheaper prices.

Over the years Harker & Howarth has supplemented local sales by supplying pianos to customers in America, Europe and Africa.

The company is to celebrate its golden jubilee with a series of concerts from Wednesday, October 30 to Sunday, November 3. As John puts it: "People still want to make their own music."

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