Virginal girls, lipstick messages, bleach blondes and steak pies

We had a good name. Denny Laine and the Diplomats sounded hip and cool - but we were not on our own in that department. Back then groups had fabulous names.

Regularly playing the local pubs and clubs were the likes of El Riot and the Rebels, Carl Wayne and the Vikings, Keith Powell and the Valets, Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders, the Modernaires, the Grasshoppers, and Gerry Levene and the Avengers.

There was Mark Stuart and the Crestas, Carl and the Cheetas, Johnny Neal and the Starliners, Clive Lea and the Phantoms, the Rockin' Berries and Danny King and the Royals.

We all wore suits, we had similar line-ups and generally played the same songs - covers of American rock'n'roll records and songs currently in the pop charts.

At great expense we had 'Denny Laine and the Diplomats' professionally sign-written on both sides of our mini-bus. It looked fantastic! It was our pride and joy and resided overnight on the drive of Steve's parents' house in Hall Green.

Before long most of the paintwork was adorned with lipstick messages from our growing army of female fans, declaring: "I love Denny", "I love Bev" "I love Phil", and "I love Steve".

The first show of each week, we would put our gig fee (usually around £12 ) into the Strepsils tin on the dashboard, and this would take care of all petrol expenses etc for the week ahead.

We began to work most nights of the week, always around the Midlands.

By day, apart from the occasional rehearsal, Phil and I would walk to Swanshurst Park to play pitch and putt golf or take my dog Remus on long walks. On our rare nights off there were plenty of pretty, virginal young girls to take to one of the local cinemas or coffee bars.

We were not yet 18 years old and it was an idyllic , innocent and carefree time.

But we needed a gimmick or two to differentiate ourselves from all our rival beat groups.

We decided to make out that we were two sets of brothers - Denny and Sonny Laine and Bev and Phil Ralston. We had made tailored mock crocodile skin suits, finished off with matching winkle-picker shoes, hand-painted silver.

Our bravest move, though, was all of us getting our hair dyed platinum blonde! Travelling on public transport or walking past a yob=filled building site in 1962, with bright, bleached blonde hair was certainly asking for trouble.

The gigs kept piling up and we regularly got invited back to the Springfield Ballroom in Sparkhill, The Adelphi in West Bromwich, The Trees in Great Barr, The Tyburn House in Erdington, Wednesbury youth centre, Shirley Annexe, The Bulls Head on the Coventry Road, The Moathouse Club, Solihull Civic Hall, Bilston Town Hall etc.

Our favourite place to stop after gigs - no, make that the ONLY place to stop after gigs - was the legendary Alex's Pie Stand in Digbeth, near Birmingham's Albany Hotel.

That's where dozens of group vans would park up and we would all talk about which new songs we were going to learn, which new instruments were on our wish lists, what latest stage clothes we were going to buy and exchange phone numbers of girls we had picked up lately.

Most important, though, was the food. We were always starving hungry after a hard night's performing and travelling, and we couldn't wait to get stuck into those meat pies, hot dogs and that scalding hot tea.

At a Brum Rocks Live gig earlier this year, at a packed Solihull Arts Complex, compere Laurie Hornsby was explaining to an enraptured audience the culinary delights of Alex's Pie Stand.

"The best thing," he said, "was the steak and kidney pie - it had a soft bottom and a crusty top."

At this point some joker in the audience shouted out: "I had a bird like that once!"