If it is true that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife, it is equally true that a composer in possession of a batch of songs needs a singer to perform them.

David Coates is in the latter category.

The pensioner from Maidstone has had a varied career: he’s done everything from farming, to butcher’s apprentice, to dustman, including National Service in Aden and Germany.

Scroll down to hear Mr Coates' song

But most of the time, in some way or the other, he has been connected with the entertainment industry.

Born in 1939, Mr Coates started out as a singer, working the clubs and hotels of the West Country and later in the Liverpool area, before coming to Kent.

For a number of years he was a fashion model for a Bond Street agency, posing for clothes catalogues.

And for more than two decades he was a professional Father Christmas, spending every festive season in big department stores across the country, from Leicester to Brighton.

He was Father Christmas in Hoopers in Tunbridge Wells in 1999, and in Debenham’s in Gillingham in 1980, where our sister paper of the time, the Evening Post, featured his visit.

During the rest of the year Mr Coates worked as an actor, with parts in The Shout, Oh What a Lovely War, International Velvet, Poldark, Crossroads, The Brothers, Spytrap, Trinity Tales and The Pallisers. He even had a very remunerative career as a life model for art classes at Goldsmiths College in New Cross and at Camberwell Arts College.

He said: “When I first started life modelling, in 1963, I was paid 8s 9d an hour (44p) which was pretty good for the time.

“I was a very good model, because I can sit perfectly still for a long time.”

But Mr Coates, who lives with his wife Geraldine in Hillden Shaw, on the Broadoak Avenue estate, said that his real love had always been singing – and songwriting.

He said: “I’ve written ballads, and country and western songs; I’ve even written a hymn for the Salvation Army which they used at their citadel in Maidstone in October.”

But now he’s had a change of direction and penned five rock-and-roll songs, with titles such as The Devil’s Rock and Roll Band, and All The People Rock.

He said: “I thought Marty Wilde might like to record them – he’s one of the few real rock ’n’ rollers still touring.”

Mr Coates has sent a recording of one of his songs he made with the assistance of his friend John Blackwood to Mr Wilde’s agents and has also tried – but failed – to catch the star at the stage door on his last tour of Kent.

A disappointed Mr Coates added: “So far I haven’t heard anything back from him.”

Those with long memories will recall Marty Wilde used to appear in Maidstone at the start of his career when he played skiffle at the Granada Cinema under his real name of Reg Smith.

Mr Coates said: “I’d really like it if he could at least give me his opinion of them.”

Come on Marty, help the man out!