A BUSKER deprived of his living after his piano was “stolen in the dead of night” is back behind the keys.

Street pianist Mark Campbell said his 900lb upright piano was poached – or hydraulically lifted – from Brighton’s Bond Street last month “by person or persons unknown”.

“It left me feeling pretty flat,” he said.

“I’ve just been completely depressed. I lost my income, and my life went down the drain.”

But Mr Campbell will be back in Bond Street tomorrow morning playing his signature “vigorous ragtime tunes” on a new piano, bought for him by a friend.

Mr Campbell leaves his pianos locked up in the street overnight. He said: “You might say I’m asking for it. But think about how big a piano is: you don’t expect someone to just pinch it.”

Since 2015, Mr Campbell has had three pianos taken.

He said the first, a brown upright model, was wheeled off by a brazen thief.

“An obviously very muscular guy pushed it from Ship Street to the station and tried to get it on board a train.

“He was going to shift it up to Crystal Palace,” Mr Campbell said.

“He made off with everything, including my coat and chair. When I finally managed to get it back, it wasn’t worth retrieving. It had a missing lid and it was all messed up.”

The second piano – a bright green instrument – also disappeared, Mr Campbell said.

“I somehow managed to lose the thing somewhere along the way,” he said.

The disappearance of the third piano – a brown, wooden, 1920s instrument – still baffles Mr Campbell.

“I left it under the arches on Bond Street by Wetherspoons,” he said. “There were no signs the thieves had struggled: somehow, they managed to hoist 900lb of piano clean off the ground.”

Mr Campbell, who has lived in Brighton for the last 20 years, recalled the moment he decided to become a professional pianist.

“I was working as a decorator at the time. I was playing my vigorous ragtime music at a party in Newcastle and a guest came over and said ‘If you can do that, you’ll never go hungry’. Well, I took those words to heart.

“I used to play at The Grand hotel, but I thought I could make more money on the street – and I did.”

Mr Campbell’s new piano is set to arrive early this morning. He said: “It’s bright in sound, sharp as I always wanted and it’s going to make me a living again.

“The tunes I play are 100 years old. As far as I’m concerned music went off the boil after about 1938. But I get a lot of older people who recognise the stuff I’m playing. It puts a spring in their step.”

His first tune, he says, will be Billy Mayhew’s It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie.