23 years on, Worthing's 'miracle baby' launches his singing career

Ryan Mac will be offering his highest-profile concert to date with a Frank Sinatra tribute evening this Saturday (February 18) at Ferring Village Hall – a show which completely sold out within a week and a half.

Proceeds from the raffle will go to the Trevor Mann Baby Unit at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton – without which he would not be here today.

Ryan was born three months premature on Valentine’s Day 23 years ago, weighing just two pounds and three ounces. As Ryan says, if you put your hand out flat, he would have fitted inside it. With

lungs the size of a thumb, he had no voice and couldn’t even cry. He spent the first three months of his life in an incubator

“There was a 50 per cent chance that I would not live. The other 50 per cent was that I would get cerebral palsy and at best would have some disabilities. I am neither of that. The only thing I have got is a bit of mild ADHD.”

The specialist care of Trevor Mann Baby Unit Brighton made all the difference, as did the love of his parents: “They have been absolutely amazing.”

And now, since last year, Ryan has been moving on to the next phase of his life. Those tiny lungs are tiny no more. He’s discovering he’s got a voice.

“I am very much into health, yoga and meditation and healthy eating. I was on a retreat in Oxford, and they had an entertainment evening while I was there. Somebody said ‘Can anybody sing?’ I thought I would give it a go. I had never done before. And at the end, a hundred people were giving me a standing ovation. I sang My Way by Frank Sinatra and just completely bluffed it. I just knew the words.”

Thanks to his granddad.

“My grandad probably loved Frank Sinatra more than he did his wife! She used to say ‘Turn that damned thing off and listen to me!’ But he would sit me down and tell me ‘This is proper music!’”

For the sold-out Ferring concert, Ryan will be offering Sinatra, plus a little of the other big swing singers, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin and Robbie Williams.

In fact, standing in the front row of a Robbie Williams concert at the O2 a couple of years ago, Ryan even found himself being handed the mic by the great man for a minute or so: “I just sang with him for a bit!”

If the Ferring gig goes well, Ryan will look at doing a couple more village-hall-type dates and then maybe in a few months book the Old Market in Hove and get a band in (for Saturday he will be using backing tracks.)

“I just want to make sure everyone has a great time. That’s the aim.”

Currently he’s working as a photographer: “But I would love to make a full-time career out of singing.”

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