MUSICIAN Cal Ruddy is thanking golden hearted Globe readers who helped him achieve his dream of performing in Nashville.

Back in March, Cal was set to fly out to San Diego to represent Liverpool at the San Diego Beatles Fair and set up a crowdfunding page to raise £5,000 for travel and accommodation.

Just 10 days before he was set to fly out, Cal unfortunately became seriously ill and was deemed medically unfit to travel.

Unsure of when he’d ever get the chance to perform in America again, Cal attended a networking event at London’s Tileyard and met chief executive of Palmer Global Ink – a Nashville based publishing organisation of artists, writers, producers and programmers of the future of the music industry.

Then, after help from Liverpool Britpop band Space’s manager Mark Cowley, Cal’s Nashville dream became a reality.

During Cal’s time in Nashville in September, he met homeless war veteran Joey who lived in a van near to Centennial Park with his two parks and a cat.

After a long day of song writing, Cal would take a trip down to the park to give Joey a hot meal each day.

Wirral Globe:

War veteran Joey in his van

Joey told Cal that he was going to hospital for an operation and had no-one to look after his pets.

Cal decided to help Joey by boarding his pets so he had one less thing to worry about.

Since then, Joey has said that he will never forget what Cal did for him until the day he dies.

Cal told the Globe: “Without the general public's generous donations my trip to Nashville wouldn't have been possible.

“As this trip was funded by the public, I felt it was only right to do something for somebody else less fortunate than me during my time out there and is something that will live in my heart forever.

“Thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who donated towards this trip and I hope that people can continue their support in my next musical ventures.

"The trip to Nashville was extremely successful, I wrote enough material to collate my very first album which is currently in the pipelines to be recorded and released in the new year."