Against all the odds, Show of Hands (singer songwriter Steve Knightley and multi instrumentalist Phil Beer), polled over a third of the public’s 5,000 votes in the contest run by Devon County Council, leaving Devonian seafaring hero Sir Francis Drake trailing in their wake in second place and racing to an unbeatable lead against Coldplay front man Chris Martin, Teignmouth band Muse, father of computing Charles Babbage, singer Joss Stone, crime writer Agatha Christie, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, artist Sir Joshua Reynolds and comedian Peter Cook, among others.

The dark horse winners – who grew up on opposite sides of the River Exe – and who now live at Topsham, near Exeter - drew votes from Devon, the rest of the UK and abroad and were praised not just as talented musicians but as fine ambassadors for the county.

Two of Devon’s best homegrown musical talents, Knightley and Beer, voted Best Live Act in the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, are little known in mainstream music. But they have successfully carved an independent niche for themselves, coining the phrase “World Music from the West Country” and have built a dedicated following for their genre-juggling music and narrative songs.  

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