20:09 Sophie McCoid

Pete: "I didn't abandon Liverpool"

After hitting the top, Pete stressed: “I didn’t abandon Liverpool. I stayed as long as I could, but in this business you have to come to London because you have to be on call for things like studios or just management decisions and I make sure I’m here so I can keep control.”

Though it’s true he didn’t enjoy some of the reaction he provoked here: “It definitely wasn’t safe for me to live there because the city, at that time, about 1982, became potentially very violent towards unusual looking people.

“But I do accept that at that time, anywhere I went in the world, it was likely to be that way.

“If you make yourself stand out and you’re very conspicuous, human nature’s first instinct is probably to attack, criticise or abuse you.

“Liverpool was great and everything was exciting but gradually the attitude towards freaky people became very nasty.

“The initial impact of having an outstanding appearance is that people are too shocked to say anything, but when they see you on a regular basis the shock wears off and turns to confusion, then the next step is aggression. Eventually they just thought ‘He’s a w****r, let’s throw a bottle at him’.”