THE one and only Chesney Hawkes is to headline Minety Music Festival in 2018 and tickets are on sale now.

The festival is to raise funds for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance, Combat Stress and Naomi House and Jacksplace Hospice.

Following on from the success of last year’s event featuring Doctor and the Medics, the family festival runs from Friday, June 29 to Sunday, July 1 2018, in Kinches Fields, adjacent to Minety Village Hall, on Hornbury Hill.

Chesney grew up surrounded by music, his father was Len Chip Hawkes, lead singer with the 1960s pop idols The Tremeloes, and he was named after Chesney Allen the singer. His mother was the actress and game show presenter, Carol Dilworth, and his sister Keely is a singer, formerly lead singer with the 1990s band Transister.

Chesney’s big break came when he played the title character in the film Buddy’s Song, and he sang the film’s soundtrack with brother Jodie on drums.

The One And Only, written by Nik Kershaw, turned out to be his biggest hit to date, notching up five weeks at number one in the UK single charts and a place in the top ten in America.

Various singles followed and now Chesney is mainly a songwriter and producer, but he has also become something of a television personality, appearing in Channel 4’s The Games in which he won a bronze medal, ITV’s Hit Me Baby One More Time, he appeared as a cherry picker in Celebrity Big Brother, danced on Let’s Dance For Comic Relief, cooked up a treat on Celebrity MasterChef, where he got to the semi finals, and then played an accident prone version of himself in the ITV comedy Panto.

Chesney has released an album called Another Fine Mess with 15 tracks all written by him.

He was also involved with the Lexus Symphony Orchestra project where he composed two original pieces of music that were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra for the in-car audio system giants.

He has starred in two musical theatre productions, Can’t Smile Without You, based on the music of Barry Manilow, and as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

The singer lives in Los Angeles with his wife Krisstina and three children, but this Christmas he is back in the UK playing the handsome prince in the Snow White pantomime in Worthing.

He returns regularly to Britain to get his fill of footie talk as he is an avid West Ham supporter and he will be back in the summer to join a host of other stars at the Minety Festival.

Joining Chesney so far in the 2018 festival line-up are The Dirty Smooth, and making a welcome return again this year are The Hallows and Mo’eep. There will also be a Bon Jovi tribute Bon Giovi and a retro set from the 80s Rock Show. Organisers say there are more stars to be announced.

The little ones are not forgotten as within the child ticket price is free use of the bouncy castle, double slide and large assault course. The Circus Skills Workshops are run by the guys from Circus Thirty Six.

For more details or to book weekend camping tickets visit http://minetyfestival.co.uk/home/4593059349.