Looe band The Changing Room are set for a busy year of touring – including their first trip Down Under.

The band, whose leading lights are Sam Kelly and Tanya Brittain, have based several of their songs on the theme of mining and say they are excited to be heading to Australia in April and following in the footsteps of many ‘Cousin Jacks.’

The Changing Room has also been invited to represent the UK at the Folk Alliance International Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, next month.

To complete a successful start to the year they have won best single/EP title at the FATEA Magazine Awards for Names on a Wall, recorded in partnership with Cornish attraction The Lost Gardens of Heligan.

The EP’s title track tells the story of the Heligan gardeners who went away to the First World War, beginning the gardens’ era of decline, but whose names were discovered written on the wall of the ‘Thunderbox Room’ (outdoor toilet) during work to restore the gardens in the 1990s.