DAVID Morris may have swapped pop for politics, but the Morecambe and Lunesdale MP has no intention of giving up his prized guitar collection.

Since starting the collection at the age of 13, David has amassed around 50 classic instruments, with a particular passion for the 80s.

Originally from Leigh in Lancashire, his love affair with the guitar started when the family moved to Nassau Island in the 1970s after his father became a director for maritime affairs in the Bahamas.

Their next door neighbour was none other than rock musician and guitarist Peter Frampton, and eight-year-old David was inspired by hearing Frampton practising.

“One memory I have is of hearing this reggae song coming over from his house that ended up being Hotel California, but with the funkiness taken out of it.”

What he describes as his first ‘professional’ guitar is a 1980s Dan Smith-era Fender Stratocaster with a natural finish – a very rare model which was only made for one year.

“I bought it brand new from A1 Music in Manchester in 1983, when I was 16,” David recalled.

“I remember seeing it on the wall and thinking it was the nicest guitar I’d ever seen, and I already knew I wanted a Fender Stratocaster.

“I used this one for quite a few sessions in the early 80s – it’s a lovely guitar and I probably play it better than any other.”

It was around this time that David joined a band called FBI, featuring a very young Rick Astley – the group gigged around local pubs “to get beer money for the weekend.”

Another early brush with success came when, as a young session musician, David heard that Bernie Marsden had left Whitesnake and decided to apply to become his replacement.

“My older brother had gone to sea at that point so I sent a picture of him to Whitesnake and got an audition.

“I was shortlisted but they were planning to break America and I was then about 18 – unfortunately you had to be 21 to play the clubs over there.”

As well as his beloved Fender Stratocaster, David said the other guitar from his collection he would save from a burning building is a Kramer Focus 1000, which he calls his ‘workhorse guitar’.

It was used for most of David’s session work – including for Paul Young, Whitesnake and George Benson – before getting a job writing songs for Pete Waterman’s PWL label.

Several of David’s guitars have famous former owners, including a red Washburn A-20 which was custom-built for slide guitarist Micky Moody during his time in Whitesnake.

David said: “He gave it to me because he never really got on with it, and used to say that he wanted to make a coffee table out of it.

“It has inlay fingerboard position markers where he used to put his hat over his fingers so you couldn’t see him playing.”

Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet fame, meanwhile, was the previous owner of an Ibanez RS Roadstar, of which only 100 were produced.

David believes this was the guitar Kemp used on the ‘True’ sessions, after discovering it in a shop in London.

“The guy at the shop said, ‘You don’t want to buy that – some ponce owned it called Gary Kemp.’

“Apparently he gave it to a mate who traded it into the shop – these guitars were only available in white but Gary had it refinished red and you can see the original colour in places where the paint is cracking.”

One of the more poignant items in David’s collection is a white Aria Pro II RS Esprit which was given to him by Alan Murphy, guitarist with Go West in the 80s.

David said that Murphy, who can be seen playing the guitar in a 1985 appearance on The Tube, “was billed as a session musician but actually wrote a lot with the band.”

Murphy also collaborated with Kate Bush and joined Level 42 in 1988, playing with them until his death from AIDS a year later.

“I always think of him when I open the case and it’s a bit emotional sometimes,” David said.

“As a guitarist he really was something else and there should be more written about him.”

David retired as a professional musician 25 years ago and also worked as a hairdresser’s apprentice before becoming an MP.

These days he is a musical patron of musical awareness program Rock The House and sometimes plays with cross-party all-MP band MP4.

David said: “I play my guitars as often as I can – to me they’re stories and pieces of history.”