Madness icon Suggs has become an ambassador for this year’s Camden mayor’s charity, the Camden Music Trust.

The Holloway resident has met students from local schools who are learning with the Camden Music Service, at the Dublin Castle, where the band were discovered.

The charity helps provide inclusive music education, scholarships and affordable music instruments for loan, to ensure all Camden children can learn an instrument.

He said: “I am very pleased to be involved with the Mayor of Camden, the Camden Music Trust and many others in promoting music for young people.

“For too long arts have not been given the priority they deserve. But who in this country is not cheered up by music - and by the money it generates. Without the help of others, the pubs and clubs of Camden would not be here for us.”

The mayor, Jenny Headlam-Wells is set to raise more than £80,000 for the charity by the end of her mayoral year, in May.

Cllr Headlam-Wells said: “It’s wonderful to have such an icon of Camden musical talent on board to inspire children and young people in Camden so they too could go on to have a successful career in music.”