‘Allo… When this came out half a century ago we all went around copying Ian Hunter’s greeting that kicks off his debut solo single Once Bitten, Twice Shy.

And not just me but a young John Lydon in Finsbury Park, who would recycle it three years later for his own debut with new band Public Image Ltd.

The chirpy Cockney salutation is one of the most memorable intros of a pop single although, unlike Lydon, the lead singer of Mott The Hoople was born nowhere near the sound of Bow Bells.

Ian Hunter Patterson was born and raised in Shropshire, aside from a spell in Scotland during WWII, the son of an MI5 officer. His first musical gig was playing guitar in a band called The Apex Group but he left in 1958, just before they recorded their single, the twangy Tornados-adjacent instrumental Yorkshire Relish.

Five or six years later he returned to the newly renamed Apex Rhythm & Blues All Stars but once again left just before they recorded a belated second single called Tall Girl, and moved to London where he joined a band called The Scenery and finally recorded a single, the self-penned To Make A Man Cry.

Three years later he was the front man in a new band, Mott The Hoople (previously known as Silence), singing in a Dylanesque drawl on their first four albums until David Bowie gave them a cast-off song called All The Young Dudes in 1972.

Reinventing his accent after his new mentor, Hunter and Mott finally found success, following the Bowie-produced Dudes album with their two best efforts – Mott and (you guessed) The Hoople – before they split up and Hunter went solo, taking the band’s new guitarist Mick Ronson with him.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy was his first solo single and reached No.14 on the singles chart; it’s a bit of a plodding boogie but Hunter’s conversational sung-spoken lyrics (and that intro!) make it a memorable one, as does Mick Ronson’s characteristic contribution

The duo had met back in the late ’60s, when the Hull-born guitarist was playing with The Voice and The Rats, and would reunite several times during the next two decades, during which Hunter also produced Generation X’s not-very-good second album.