Bev Bevan Diaries: I wanted to own a Boeing 747

READING back through my old scrapbooks now, I look at the ambitions The Move had back in the 1960s.

It was all very narrow-minded really. It was all very material.

Roy Wood's ambition, believe it or not, was to "own a skyscraper block of flats."

I wanted to own my own Boeing 707.

Ace Kefford's ambition was definitely from the heart - he just wanted to be a millionaire.

It wasn't enough to be the world's best bass player, he had to make a million, too.

Trevor Burton said that his big ambition in life was to retire at birth and live in Rio.

He's still playing with my band, bless him.

Carl Wayne said he just wanted to he happy. That was very unlike him - not outrageous enough.

We'd all taken on different personalities within the group, in much the same way that The Beatles had done.

Carl was the outspoken and outrageous one; Woody was the bizarre but strangely shy one.

Trevor and Ace were the youngest and they were most in tune with the drug culture.

I was the steady one at the back, the one who held the band together and played practical jokes on everyone.

There were obvious parallels with The Beatles, who we, like most other groups, held in awe.

Meanwhile, the clergy branded us "immoral and disgusting" and the psychiatrists said we were portraying a very unhealthy and degenerate culture.

A Bishop had a go at us for devil worship - God knows where he got that one from - and there were big headlines about how we'd been banned from playing at the cathedral in our hometown.

It was utter tosh. Why on earth would we want to be at Birmingham Cathedral with The Three Monarchs and Ernie Wise, anyway?

But there was no such thing as bad publicity. We'd do anything for publicity.

One article that wasn't a hype was a piece by Paul McCartney. He reviewed us and told the world: "The Move are cool."

Can you imagine how we felt about that?

We were still in awe of The Beatles, and here was one of them giving us the official stamp of approval. We were well chuffed.