And always will.He has, of course, derived a great deal of comfort from his religion. As a Witness, he believes that, come the end of the world as we know it, Earth will be restored to perfection and all those who have died will come back to live the beautiful lives God always intended Dean and Hank will meet again He is sure of it. And they’ll be able to recognise each other? Definitely, he insists, we will all come back as ourselves, “otherwise there wouldn’t be any point. How would we recognise each other?”Hank (and Cliff, of course) were always religious converts waiting to happen, as far as I can see. With them, it was never so much sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as the occasional stolen kiss with Una Stubbs followed by a strawberry shake at a milk bar then an early night curled up with The Reader’s Digest, a periodical Hank still ranks as up there with Awake, one of the magazines of the Witness movement. “It’s a very educational magazine, full of articles of geographical interest,” he enthuses. He then recalls how Cliff once discovered a big cardboard box in his dressing room, and got very excited because he thought someone had sent him a television as a present.

So when the box suddenly burst open, and a girl jumped out, “Cliff was very disappointed. He’d have preferred a telly.”Hank and Cliff, a born-again Christian, disagree on most things when it comes to religion – “Oh yes, we’ve had some very deep discussions in the past” – but they resolutely remain pals. Cliff surprised him by turning up at the Albert Hall on his last tour and performing “Move It!” And Hank is looking forward to seeing Heathcliff this week. Cliff, he reveals, “has wanted to play Heathcliff ever since he was 18 I admire him enormously for his tenacity and courage He’s had a lot of negative media coverage, I know. But I spoke to him the other night and he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.”Hank Marvin can’t, surely, have acquired a new fan in 30 years, but he is one of those people who goes inexorably on, and still notches up excellent record sales His latest solo album, Hank Plays Holly, reached the top 40. Hank Marvin Plays Live, a video recording of his 1995 Birmingham Symphony Hall concert is released today And, on Friday, he starts a 42-date nationwide tour Yes, he’ll be doing “Apache” And “Summer Holiday” And “Move It!”. It’s expected.What sort of people, I ask, attend his concerts these days? “Human beings,” he retorts with an enormously pleased chuckle.

He does, to be sure, have a very Summer Holiday, C&A sense of humour. Hank, how do you remember your mother as a child? “I don’t remember my mother as a child. She was always grown up to me.” More chuckles, tee-hee, and what a laugh on tour buses they must all have.Hank grew up in a terraced house in Newcastle with a concrete backyard, an outside toilet and a coal hole His father, Joe, was a checker and loader with British Rail. Hank passed his 11-plus and went to the local grammar school, but he quickly got into music so his academic performance never came up to much.

At 16, his father having given him a guitar for his birthday, he came to London with his equally guitar-obsessed school friend Bruce Welch, with whom he later formed The Shadows.They were playing one day in a coffee bar in Soho when Cliff’s manager, who was looking for a backing group, strolled in. “I remember being introduced to Cliff for the first time at the tailor’s shop where he was being fitted with the bright pink jacket he was going to wear on stage.” And then? “We all went back to his mother’s council house in Cheshunt on a Green Line bus and rehearsed in his front room.” As an anecdotalist, Hank can take something that should be very Versace and make it C&A, too. Later, he tells me: “On our days off, we would all go off to the cinema together with Cliff, self-consciously waiting until the lights went down before putting on his glasses, without which he couldn’t see a thing.” And: “Cliff had greasy hair and pimples back then, as we all did.”In the early Sixties, the Shadows and Cliff enjoyed great stardom, notching up hit after hit. In 1960, they played seven months at the London Palladium to 3,000 people every night.

They had achieved 11 Top 10 entries, including five number ones, by 1963. Then came The Beatles; that should have been that – “I knew from the first time I heard them they were going to be serious competition” – but it wasn’t. Sure, The Beatles ultimately forced Cliff and The Shadows to go their separate ways, but they did so with considerable success. Cliff went on to Eurovision and telly fame, while The Shadows retained their twang-a-lang loving audiences. “Cliff had enormous appeal and an enormous following, while we had meaningful hits independently with records like ‘Apache’.