MY grandmother used to love Old Time Music Hall on the telly. Do you remember Leonard Sachs stepping up to the rostrum, pausing only to tweak his waxed moustache before spluttering out a string of alliterations by way of an introduction to the next act?

Nothing - short of an earthquake - would prevent gran from seeing her beloved show. And woe betide he or she who started to talk while the programme was on.

Of course, we baby boomers have our own old time music hall now, made up of musical acts from the 1960s. Such venerable performers regularly appear at Worcester's Huntingdon Hall and the Swan Theatre, always packing the house out, and never failing to get the oldsters to shake a tail feather even if some of the plumage may now be looking decidedly tattered.

But while some of us may be too old to rock, others are sadly not too young to die, for I've just heard of the death of veteran musician Rod Allen, lead singer of The Fortunes. Their hits included You've Got Your Troubles and Storm In A Teacup.

Rod died aged 63 of liver cancer. A friend said that he learnt the awful truth during a tour in November when his illness was diagnosed. He had continued to perform with the group since its beginnings in the early 1960s.

The Fortunes hailed from my home town of Rugby and were managed by Reg Calvert, one of the Midlands' most colourful rock n' roll impresarios. He was the area's answer to Brian Epstein and ran a stable' of acts, including Pinkerton's Assorted Colours who had a hit with Mirror, Mirror.

Reg also owned Radio Caroline, the pirate station that took its name from The Fortune's first record. I interviewed him on a number of occasions.

Tragically, Reg Calvert met a violent end when he was shot to death on the doorstep at the home of a rival pirate station owner. His killer was charged with manslaughter.

One by one, the actors who strode the 1960s stage are passing on. At some stage, the final curtain will fall and the greatest musical decade will be little more than grainy pictures and scratchy vinyl tomorrow's Old Time Music Hall.