Veteran rocker Rod Stewart owes Burton Mail man Bill Pritchard half a crown – or a pint at least.

The Cockney-born crooner, who played Derby’s Pride Park stadium on Sunday, has actually been to Derby before.

Young Rod…

And it was there that Bill, also a true Cockney, met Rod the Mod – long before The Faces frontman hit the big time.

Bill, a sub-editor with the Mail, recalled an R&B club in the Corporation Hotel, Derby, where he and his schoolfriends used to visit on music nights.

He said: “This particular night we had gone down to see an attraction called Steampacket, this was long before any of the acts were famous.

… and young Bill

“On the bill that night was Long John Baldry, who reached number one in later years with Let the Heartaches Begin, and the Brian Auger Trinity, featuring Julie Driscoll, who went on to have a hit with a cover of Bob Dylan’s This Wheel’s On Fire.

“What makes this night stand out in the memory is not anything they did, but this skinny little Cockney kid who came and sat with us.

“He had a few beers and then said he had to go and ‘do his bit’.

“We now know he was Rod the Mod and do you know – he never put his hand in his pocket once!”