Tim Easterby: 'You wouldn't believe you could mess it up so much!'

If the Easterby family were to start a band to play the northern club circuit – like the Partridge Family, perhaps, or the Beverley Sisters, but definitely not the Righteous Brothers – then Tim Easterby wouldn't be the lead singer.

His uncle Mick is the song and dance man of the outfit, of that there's no doubt, and his dad Peter, although he may, at 92, be even older than Mick Jagger, can still cut a rug on the gallops. Tim would be more the bass player, the bedrock of the outfit, gifted and pivotal in his own way, but not given to extravagant displays for the benefit of the media.

Except that now, on the brink of his 60th birthday on Monday, he's having to get used to a little more of the limelight.