TRIBUTES have been paid to well-known Ipswich musician Thomas Brown who has died.Mr Brown, a keen violin player, was a popular face within the Ipswich Orchestral Society.

TRIBUTES have been paid to well-known Ipswich musician Thomas Brown who has died.

Mr Brown, a keen violin player, was a popular face within the Ipswich Orchestral Society.

He had also worked for many years in the printing world and had worked for the Ancient House Press as well as Boswell Printers.

A busy man, he also worked on the East Anglian Daily Times magazine run by the Evening Star's sister paper during the 1960s.

His son Adrian Brown, an internationally acclaimed musician and conductor himself, said that his father would have loved to have taken up music as a career but was thwarted by the demise of silent movies.

As a youngster he wanted to play as part of the orchestras that played in the pits at cinema's during silent movies.

But with the onset of sound on films they were no longer needed.

Mr Brown, who now lives in London, said: "There was no future for dad then.

"He had a choice to go to the Royal College of Music but he would not have been able to get a career from it.

"So he really revelled in the fact that I became a nationally known conductor."

Mr Brown whose funeral took place on Wednesday died at the age of 86 last Saturday .

He was born and brought up in Ealing where he met his wife Joyce when they were just 12 years old.

Always interested in music he followed in the footsteps of his father and became the bandmaster of the Hammersmith Salvation Army.

After the war Mr Brown and his wife moved to Ipswich and settled in Spring Road before moving to Felixstowe Road where they lived for 50 years.

The pair were also known for their modern sequence dancing around Ipswich.

Adrian said: "He was such a kind loyal man, we had 60 sympathy cards.

"I did a concert in Lowestoft and there were lots of tributes to him."

As an only child Adrian was very close to his father and they were both extremely proud of one another.

He said: "I will miss him very much. I would ring him every day and you could not ask for more support from someone."