A group featuring a former Wisbech Grammar School pupil will be playing at this year s Glastonbury Festival. Tim Butcher, who grew up in Wisbech and left to take up a university place in 2004, plays trumpet in Bison, a nine-piece ska/funk/rock band, who w

A group featuring a former Wisbech Grammar School pupil will be playing at this year's Glastonbury Festival.

Tim Butcher, who grew up in Wisbech and left to take up a university place in 2004, plays trumpet in Bison, a nine-piece ska/funk/rock band, who will be one of the many attractions at the world's largest music festival, scheduled for the weekend of June 22-24 and featuring a host of acts, including The Who, Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Lily Allen, Amy Whitehouse, Bjork and Paul Weller.

Now 21, Tim started learning the trumpet at the age of 10 and honed his skills while a student at the Grammar School, playing in school orchestras and bands.

He won his first trumpet award in the school's 'house music competition' as an 11-year-old playing the Pink Panther theme to a packed house of parents and friends. This led to his appointment as head of house music seven years later.

The first band he saw while a student at Sheffield University, where he has just finished a degree in architecture, was Bison.

"If I could one day be in a band half that good, I'd be a happy man," he thought at the time. "Fast forward two years down the line to January 2007, and after attending many Bison gigs in those two years, my love for them had increased 10-fold.

"I then received a blanket e-mail saying that they're looking for a trumpet player. I almost broke the keyboard as I thumped out a response saying I'd be up for having a go. After a totally surreal jam in their studio the next day, I was getting ready for my first gig the next week in Nottingham."

Tim, who also runs a small portrait painting business, describes bison as "a diverse range of characters" who play "a rich tapestry of horns-fronted, hat-wearing, hoof-stomping ska".

He added: "Landing two sets at Glastonbury has seriously excited us, as we're already getting interest from many promoters for gigs off the back of it - even though we haven't actually played yet.