Hounslow Symphony Orchestra (HSO) is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a special concert in November.

The group of 45 amateur musicians are preparing to put on a show-stopping performance of one the great English symphonies, Elgar's Symphony No 1, under professional conductor Scott Wilson.

Members who are aged between their early 20s to mid-eighties come from all walks of life including a research scientist, postman, teachers, NHS workers and even a retired member of the Coldstream Guards.

Longest serving member and trumpet player Tony Yates-Watson, a retired chartered accountant who joined 45 years ago, said: “I love playing the trumpet, I always have done, and I’ve met some very nice people in the orchestra.

“The trumpet is very physical, so when you come back from work and you have to practice, it really does take your mind off everything else, it’s good for you.

“Playing music is a very difficult, and we are all amateurs, we don’t have five hours a day to practice like the professionals, and so it is really wonderful when after several weeks of rehearsals it starts to come together.”

The group is extra special to Mr Yates-Watson as he met his clarinettist wife Jackie (nee Boxford) here 27 years ago.

It was founded as the Heston and Isleworth Symphony orchestra in May 1954 and held its opening concert in December that year in Cranford.

Since then it has been renamed, become independent from Hounslow council and given around 200 concerts led by 11 conductors including Mr Wilson who took up his post in 2011.

He said: “The sheer improbability of success, the fact that we are performing some of the greatest and most complex music ever written, on instruments that require enormous skill and dedication in order to play them, by people who have their professional lives outside of music-making, makes this environment so exciting, so challenging, and wonderfully rewarding. I admire every musician within our orchestra.

"When the orchestra manages, as it often does, to exceed its own expectations, the feeling is one of great pride and genuine enjoyment. It is a pleasure and an honour to be a part of this process.”

Currently rehearsals are held in St Mary's church in Isleworth and led by professional first violinist Nicola Garty, and each year the group old three public concerts.

Charles Bartlett, from Whitton, didn’t touch a violin between the ages of eighteen and forty, which he regretted until his wife bought him the instrument and got him classes, said: "My teacher persuaded me to join HSO to improve, and 10 years on, it is such a rewarding thing to do.

"When you’re part of an orchestra and playing, say, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, at that moment nothing else matters.“

Among the orchestra are horn players, oboe players and the most senior player is 86-year-old Joan Hazel who took up cello at the age of 60.

To mark its 60th year the orchestra has commissioned a piece by composer John Woolrich, who also turns 60 this year

The celebratory concert is at St Mary’s Church in Osterley on November 29 from 7pm..

Buy tickets at www.hounslow-symphony.org.uk