THEY have become a Scottish institution entertaining generations of children for the past 30 years.

Now Singing Kettle founders, husband and wife team Artie Trezise and Cilla Fisher are preparing for their final appearance in Fife when they play the Alhambra next month.

They have remained in their Kingskettle base as their fame reached around the world, filling the London Palladium, entertaining the Jordanian royal family and the couple's achievements were recognised with MBEs.

Now Artie and Cilla are stepping out of the limelight but will continue to run the company from behind the scenes.

Artie told the Press, "We've been doing the Singing Kettle for around 30 years but we've been on the road for over 40 years.

"We started off as folk singers travelling the length and breadth of the country and that also took us to all the major folk festivals in the world. It was a fantastic lifestyle that we really loved."

When their kids came along their globe-trotting exploits had to be put on hold but entertaining their wee ones would open up a whole new career.

"We never meant to become children's entertainers but things went that way and we're glad they did.

"We would be singing in the car and our daughter thought the songs in our car were better than anybody else's."

They decided to record an album and Artie recalled, "It was very much a plan just to do something for kids in Scotland and we had no idea it would be so successful.

"Within months it had outsold every other album we had done which included highly acclaimed recordings we had made.

"But the kids' one outsold everything very quickly so we realised there was a potential there but we never decided to go down that route until our second child came along."

The popularity of The Singing Kettle was evident from the start. "There were massive audiences came to wherever we played," Artie went on.

"I found children's entertainment much more challenging ultimately because we suddenly were filling big venues so we had to learn the technical aspects of theatre production, what we could do with the sets and just to present with a little more polish.

"The biggest challenge in the early days was that children entertainers were very much treated as second class citizens and having been on the other side of the coin we knew what we could expect, we knew how performers should be treated.

"We found that there was a certain disdain for children's performers and it was something of a battle. It focused all our attention and I think we moved things on for children's entertainers generally."

"The support we've had from the Scottish public has been tremendous from the start."

The Singing Kettle bring 'Fairytale Castle' to the Alhambra on Saturday 16th February at 2pm. *** Read the full feature in this week's Press</>