A folk musician who wrote hit sea shanty Cornwall My Home says singing saved his life - after his voice got hoarse and doctors discovered he had cancer of the vocal cords.

Harry Glasson, 69, was a popular performer in his local area and would go from pub to pub belting out his home-written hits.

But one day his voice went a bit croaky and Harry couldn't sing, so because he couldn't work he went to the doctors to get it checked out.

It was soon diagnosed that Harry had cancer of the vocal cords - and he was saved because they discovered it so quick.

Falmouth Packet:

Harry, from Penzance, Cornwall, said: "Singing saved my life, I could have been a lot worse.

"If I wasn't a singer, was a builder say, if my voice went a bit rough I wouldn't have thought about it - being a singer helped rather than hindered in a way.

"A lot of people wouldn't have bothered because their voice had gone a bit husky.

"But because it was costing me money - because I couldn't sing - I went to the doctors and they had a look and found the cancer and took it out.

"I didn't have chemotherapy, or anything like that - I just had the operation and they took it out.

"I've got a very good voice for someone with a laryngectomy. I can still sing, it's every bit as good as before - it's just that I was useless back then."

Harry's music career, and his tour guide business, ended when his vocal cords were removed in 2009 but his legend lives on.

In 1997, at the height of his local fame, Harry wrote 'Cornwall My Home' which went on to become a hit in sea shanty festivals around the county.

The song features the lyrics: "And this is my Cornwall and I'll tell you why, because I was born here and here I shall die."

Harry continued: "it's amazing to see people performing my music, I never expected it to catch on.

"I don't know what it is, I think people love the words as much as anything. I just wrote what I loved about Cornwall and it seems that's what everyone else loved.

"I never had hits, I never envisaged being anything other than a local singer - the song was one of those sort of songs, I never expected it to go anywhere.

"It was picked up by Will Keating, he came to me because he sang with The Oggymen.

"He came to me and asked if I had any others and he did an album of my songs, Cornwall is my Home was one of them - it's him who drove it to what it is.

"To get the recognition when you didn't expect anything is just amazing, to me I'm just a pub signer."