A GRIEVING mum this week spoke about her only child, who died of an asthma attack at 28.

Shirley Ryan said music was son Nick's life.

She told how he started playing the drums at one when most other babies were just learning to talk.

"He could play a tune on cake tins with wooden spoons," she said.

"Music was his love and he always dreamed of being a rock star."

He taught himself guitar and wrote his own songs, two of which were played at his funeral on Monday.

Mourners at Altrincham Crematorium also listened to Lithium by his hero Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.

Monkey

Mrs Ryan, formerly of Grassfield Way, Knutsford, is known for performances with Knutsford Amateur Operatic Society and as a member of Knutsford Singers.

But she never dreamed that her son would also take to the stage and perform his own gigs on various stages around Manchester.

For when he was a boy he played a monkey in a production, but refused to get out of the car when they pulled up outside Knutsford Little Theatre.

"It was all nerves, but he did it eventually," she said.

It was music, though, that brought him to his 26-year-old Austrian girlfriend, Sylvia Weitmeyer.

They met at Glastonbury during one of the music festival's worst years for mud and rain.

When he arrived home Mrs Ryan could hardly believe he would have made a good first impression.

"We almost had to carve the clothes off him he was that muddy," she said.

"But then he took a coach to visit her in Austria." The 48-hour trip to Austria, though, not only impressed Sylvia, but also her parents.

On Monday Sylvia was among those mourning his death.

Films were his other passion.

The former Yorston Lodge and Bexton School pupil was inspired so much by Star Wars and Jaws that he made a horror movie starring Sylvia.

His efforts earned him top marks and helped him towards a degree in film and media studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.

"When he was little I had to go and see every Star Wars film with him which I loved," said Mrs Ryan. "He loved Superman and Spiderman as a child and I could never get him out of his suit."

Mrs Ryan still hopes that a film script Nick wrote with two friends will be screened.

Yesterday (Tuesday) she told the Guardian that she had been touched by how well-loved he was by his friends.

"He was an only child, but I feel like he had lots of brothers and sisters," she said.

Mrs Ryan said she was grateful too to everyone who had given her lifts to hospital to visit her husband Norman.

Donations for the Buteyko Breathing Association and Asthma UK can be sent to Dodgson's, 25 Manchester Road, Knutsford, WA16 OLY.