Tony Romaine has played live on stage countless times, but his appearance at The Tooth and Claw in Inverness last August is one he will never forget.
Twelve months previously, aged just 47, the Balloch dad-of-four had a stroke that left him unable to walk or speak.
His left hand no longer functioned and he was told he may never play the guitar again.
The gig at The Tooth and Claw, however, proved that wasn’t how it was going to be. In front of his family, he had the gig of his life.
“It was amazing,” says Tony from his home in Inverness. “I was crying my eyes out the whole time.”
Tony Romaine and his never-give-up attitude after life-changing stroke
Now Tony is on a new mission.
Just over a month ago, he issued his first new release since his stroke, a single called Standing Stone.
For him, it is a marker of how far he has come since the stroke that left him pinned to his sofa for five hours, unable to call out to his wife for help.
And it also proves to him there is life after a debilitating health condition that forced him to learn how to play guitar one-handed.
“It is my hope that the more people that hear my story — and song — the more awareness I can raise,” he says. “And hopefully encourage others in similar situations to never give up.”
From busking in the Netherlands to Inverness musician
Tony first picked a guitar up when he was 11.
His dad had bought one because he wanted to learn, but a month later lost interest. For Tony, however, it was the start of a love affair that has yet to end.
“I don’t know, but it was something I could make what I wanted it to do, do,” he says, picking through the words carefully. “And at the same time it was something that focused me very strongly on one thing. I think I’ve always enjoyed that part of it.”
He says the instrument also opened him up to the world of music, where his tastes roamed far and wide. “Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra,” is how he puts it.
In his late teens and early 20s, the guitar allowed him to travel. He spent five years busking around the Netherlands, playing crowd-friendly songs such as Toto by Africa and anything by the Beatles.
Even when he returned to Scotland to work in various jobs around Inverness, including as a labourer for his dad’s stairlift-installation company, he kept playing.
He says the guitar has been a constant in his life, through his marriage in 2004 and the birth of his children, Adam, Zoe, Connor and Odin.
Up until the moment he had a stroke.
The Sunday night takeaway that went wrong
He remembers everything about it.
It was a Sunday night in August 2022. He’d just played two nights in a row at the Castle Tavern in Inverness, on Friday and Saturday. He’d recently secured a residency at the venue and it was his new regular spot.
Sunday, therefore, was a chance to take it easy, to sit on the couch at home and eat a takeaway.
“Be lazy,” says Tony.
The takeaway — a pie and chips — took a while to arrive but by the time it did Tony was feeling strange.
“I couldn’t move my arm properly,” he says. “I was trying to speak to my wife, and she says, ‘I can’t hear you.’ I was just like, ‘Oh, never mind!'”
He remembers eating his chips with his right hand because his left wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do. It felt “weird”, but he put it down to exhaustion from the two shows he’d just played.
Two hours later he still felt unwell so took himself off to bed. He managed the stairs, but only just.
“That was hard,” he says. “My walking wasn’t… proper.”
He had a fleeting thought that perhaps he’d had a stroke. But he dismissed the idea almost immediately.
Pinned to his sofa unable to speak
That night he couldn’t sleep and went back downstairs to lie on the sofa.
It was then that he realised he couldn’t move at all.
“I couldn’t move my leg or my arm, I couldn’t get up,” he says. “I couldn’t shout out for help either — I couldn’t speak.”
Imprisoned on the sofa, Tony says that, all things considered, he felt strangely calm.
He believes it was probably shock, but he lay there for two hours until he eventually managed to reach his phone and text his wife.
She, however, didn’t see the text until 5am, so Tony lay on the sofa for five hours, unable to speak or help himself.
“All I was thinking was, I need to get some help,” he says.
“I remember having cramp in my foot and it was the most annoying thing ever. It was really sore because I couldn’t move. There was nothing I could do about it.”
When his wife came downstairs, she quickly called an ambulance — and also gave Tony water through a straw, which he immediately choked on because he couldn’t swallow.
At Inverness’s Raigmore Hospital, he was admitted to ICU, where he stayed for the next five days.
He was diagnosed quickly, though Tony still couldn’t believe it. A stroke happened to older people, not a fit, healthy 47-year-old.
The situation was serious, however — perhaps more so than Tony realised. Doctors told his family he may not last more than a day.
How Tony learned to play the guitar again
Tony, however, never doubted he would one day play the guitar again.
Not long after the stroke, a friend brought an acoustic guitar to the hospital.
Raigmore has a room for musical therapy, so Tony took the guitar there, laid it out in front of him and tried to play.
At first, he could only strum. But he got better, and when he returned home he discovered his electric guitar was easier to play than the acoustic.
His left hand was still almost useless, but he figured out ways to get around it, and soon learned to play with just one hand.
“Slowly but surely I began to figure out little techniques on how to do things,” he says, explaining how he holds the string with one finger on his right hand while plucking it with his pinky.
“I still had all the knowledge in my head about where everything was, what chords go with what notes, so it wasn’t really like I was learning,” he adds.
“And in a few months, I came a lot further than I thought I would.”
The gig of his life at The Tooth and Claw
Tony’s stroke was in August 2022. A year later, he played the Tooth and Claw gig with two friends supporting him.
It was an emotional night in front of a packed, raucous crowd.
He still couldn’t use his left hand, and he claims his voice was “terrible”. But the audience gave him the biggest applause of his career.
Tony now has bigger ambitions.
He released his new song on Spotify in August, two years on from the stroke that upended his life.
The release has extra significance because he wrote the song just three days before that night he got trapped on his sofa.
The vocals were recorded then, too, but all of the lead guitar parts were laid down recently, played by Tony using his new one-handed technique.
Did it take him long? Not really.
“To be honest, I was sitting there for half an hour,” he says. “And that was with a lot of chatting.”
Back on stage and getting stronger
Now 49, Tony’s recovery continues. His voice is getting stronger and he’s played more gigs since The Tooth and Claw.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get back to playing with two hands. But he’s fine with that. As long as he’s able to get up on stage, back where he belongs.
“It still feels like I’m getting back to where I belong,” he says. “But there is definitely that feeling, yes.”
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