Singer goes from jamming in spare room in lockdown to recording at Beatles' Abbey Road studio

Video report by ITV News Meridian's Charlotte Briere-Edney (featuring footage from MPH Film)

A man from Oxfordshire has gone from writing songs in his spare room during lockdown, to recording a single at Abbey Road Studios in honour of his father who has dementia.

Charlie Starmer-Smith wrote 'Spotlight' as a way to come to terms with his father's illness.

His mum, who was battling bowel cancer, persuaded Charlie to send a song into a radio station. It was played, and within days a producer had got in touch.

Charlie said: "It was an outlet for me. I've always struggled, not surprisingly maybe, to convey my emotions and feelings in the way that perhaps I'd like to.

"And I found that music, I could, and I could scribble down these songs and play a few different melodies for noone else apart from myself.

"But it was my mum who had obviously endured hearing this for several weeks and said, as any mum does, 'these are great - you should do something with these'."

Charlie's father is former England Rugby player and commentator Nigel Starmer-Smith.

Starmer-Smith Senior's career spanned decades, until dementia robbed him not just of his memory, but his ability to speak.

Charlie said: "He was commentating in March 2015 and within six months of that he was unable to talk. That was how quickly the dementia happened. But I think it's been so incredibly cruel."

"I mean something he's built his whole career and life around, being able to talk, has been taken away."

The lyrics include the lines: "I take his hand, it's so cold to touch. Not like the man, the father, I miss so much."

Watch the full music video below

His father now lives in a specialist dementia home near Oxford.

Charlie describes dementia as a cruel disease.

"There is no cure, there's not even one thing that's been able to help my dad."

"No medication, no treatment that's even been able to slow things down and I find that staggering and I think this is something that pretty much everyone in this country will be touched by.

"So if there's anything that can be done, and if this song which is there to raise awareness and money can help and people can download it, then they'll be doing a great thing."

Charlie is donating all the proceeds from his single to the charity Alzheimer's Society.