“He always put the happiness and wellbeing of his friends first,” said the family of an 18-year-old boy who sadly died in a crash on the A420 near Faringdon.

Calum Leighton passed away on Sunday (August 21) after a black Ford Fiesta crashed with a coach and a white Alfa Romeo.

Through Thames Valley Police, his family have released a tribute to the Chippenham DJ.

They said: “Calum loved life. And to Calum, life was his friends and his music. He will be absolutely devastated about the impact this will have on all of his friends, but especially Lawrence and Joe.

“The one comfort for us at this time is that the last 24 hours of his life were the best ever. He was so happy at being able to launch his own label, Run Da Riddim, along with his friends Olly Ley, Callum Whiting, and Sam ‘MC’ Martin.

“Everyone said how brilliant his set was and how happy he was to be sharing his love and cheeky smile with all his friends.

“His sole aim, as always, was to bring everyone together for a good time, and what better way than with music.

“For many, covid brought heartbreak. For Calum it provided the chance to discover his passion for music, particularly for drum and bass.

“He already had a place to study music performance at BIMM in Bristol, making the most of his beautiful singing voice.

“However, he soon realised that his passion was being a DJ and doing music production, and after completing his first year at BIMM, he moved to Access Creative College.

“He was soon performing at events and clubs all over Bristol and Bath, becoming a regular at Revelations events and soon moving to the main stage.

“During this time, he also started producing his own music. We heard bits and pieces (often woken in the middle of the night by the dulcet tones of a thumping bass line emanating from his bedroom) but only realised this week just how many songs he had been working on.

“We are so lucky that we will have his music to remember him by and comforted in the knowledge that [his friends] are going to finish and release all of his songs over the coming months for everyone to enjoy.

“You don’t realise what you have until it’s gone. And then it’s too late. We thank all of his many, many, many friends for their love and support.

“Our beautiful boy Calum, da brightest rock star in the sky will shine on in are hearts forever. Andy, Ursula & Darcey xxx.”

-

A message from our Editor

Thank you for reading this story and supporting the Oxford Mail.

If you like what we do please consider getting a subscription for the Oxford Mail and in return we’ll give you unrestricted access with less adverts across our website from the latest news, investigations, features, and sport.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok for more. 

You can also join the conversation in our Facebook groups: stay ahead of traffic alerts here, keep up to date with the latest from court here, share your favourite memories of Oxford here, get your daily dose of celebrity news here and take some time out with news that will make you smile. 

If you’ve got a story for our reporters, send us your news here. You can also list an event for free here.