A SONG written by a nine-year-old North Petherton boy for the victims of the floods will by vying for a spot on the UK charts.

Henry Dyer performs with the band The Thatchers and it was his son, Jacob, who wrote the song, ‘Waterflow’, for a class project.

Henry said: “Jacob wrote it as a poem in school when the floods hit. My daughter, Jessica, wrote a melody with the lyrics. Then the four of us in the band came together and wrote the piece for it.”

Waterflow was uploaded onto Soundcloud where it caught the ear of the recording label Negart Records and was chosen to compete in their Sonic Star Talent Competition for unsigned bands.

The success of Waterflow is another piece of good news for band, which has seen a real upturn in their fortunes since forming in 2011.

Henry Dyer and Chris Baker have been playing music in Somerset for the past 20 years, and with their new band alongside Jessica Dyer, Henry’s 17- year-old daughter, and Lee ‘H’ Harris, they’ve never had it so good.

Henry said: “It was so hard 20 years ago to do your own material at a gig. Now we’re going absolutely flat out. This is the only weekend we have got off. The past year has had no let up.

The Thatchers have a few theories as to why they are playing so regularly now. Chris said: “Mainstream music has changed. Dance music has sort of died down and more people are playing with instruments rather than computers.”

Henry said: “Everybody picked up their acoustic guitar since Mumford and Sons. We were in a heavy metal band but now we can go to a pub and don’t need to be cranking out 10,000 watts.”

The Thatchers are now starting their campaign over the next few months, before voting in the competition starts in June, to push Waterflow across the county on radio and TV.

For more information on The Thatchers see their facebook page facebook.com/thethatchersband