Pete's never gonna give up his love of Blackpool

Which is fortunate, as he’ll be hoping to recreate those pop heydays at this month’s Livewire Festival at the Tower Festival Headland.

Pete also hosted the Hit Man And Her TV show, which regularly filmed in Blackpool’s nightclubs.

“And we’re back in Blackpool; You can’t keep a good show down,” he said of the Hit Factory Live, on Saturday, August 26.

“We did Hitman so many times from there. I guess it was our natural home.

“I grew up with Blackpool as the entertainment capital. If you could get to Blackpool in the summer season, that was where all the big entertainment was. Getting to Blackpool on the tour was a big deal, a feeling like ‘wow, we’ve made it’.

“Granada would have had us in Blackpool every weekend if they could. When they would say [at the end of the show] ‘next week we’re in Blackpool’, the TV audience went up.”

Pete, as part of SAW and his own company PWL, was behind some of the biggest records of the day - so which was his favourite?

“Probably the two everybody most associates me with: Never Gonna Give You Up, you heard that every day, and This Time I Know It’s For Real by Donna Summer,” he said.

“You hear both of them on the radio now. Donna Summer is no longer with us, so it’s even more poignant.”

• The Hit Factory Live, Tower Festival Headland, Saturday, August 26. Also playing, The Jacksons and Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff.