A Bishop's Castle blue plaque for the man who wrote Apache

The Three Tuns in Bishop's Castle is currently closed, as I found when I visited the town on holiday.

I also found that this blue plaque has been put up on the outside of the pub since I was last there. Jerry Lordan, who died in 1995, was obviously a regular customer.

Lordan, who had three hits himself as a singer, wrote the classic Shadows tunes Apache, Wonderful Land and Atlantis. Like the Tornados' Telstar, they capture the optimism of their era, though you suspect the wonderful land he had in mind was America.

Seeing as I suggested a few months ago that Jet Harris smoking his cigarette at the start of this Shadows video of Apache is the coolest moment in British pop, we had better see it again.