BUSTER Bloodvessel, Bad Manners' eccentric front man, might be half the man he used to be, but the zany crooner still kicks up a mighty storm of moon-stomping Ska and reggae music.

Buster was famous for his shiny bald head, giant personality and his even bigger roly-poly frame.

But after losing a staggering 17 stone, Buster, who once ran a hotel in Margate called Fatty Towers, with gigantic beds and an annual Belly of the Year contest, is unrecognisable from the colossal figure who bounced around the stage on Top of the Pops belting out Lip Up Fatty at the height of their fame in the 1980s.

Buster, who returns to Clitheroe's Grand Theatre for Bad Manners' Christmas show on Saturday said: "I lost so much weight people thought I was dying when they saw me.

"When I got down to 12 stone I looked like a ballerina on stage.

"I just couldn't believe it when I looked in the mirror.

"At one stage I was 31 stone and I collapsed during a concert.

"I suppose I was living up to an image. People expected Buster to be huge but it made me unwell.

"But I liked the idea of being fat, eating, drinking, being jolly – to me those are fine qualities."

Whilst Bad Manners' hits, My Girl Lollipop, Can Can and Special Brew, topped the charts, Buster's weight topped the scales.

And 40 years on from their first gig – at Stonehenge Free Festival of all places – Buster and the boys are still tearing up the floorboards.

"In every performance I was thinking this could be my last, the way I was performing on stage," said Buster, real name Doug Trendle.

"I hope that is in the distant future, but I'd rather go out that way than sat in an old people's home."

He added: "We've come a long way from that show at Stonehenge, playing to 150 hippies in a field at eleven o'clock in the morning.

"It was a bit of a shock to them - not so much for us because we were young and stupid.

"By the end, the hippies were going mental and having a good time. So we figured that we were on to a good thing."

Bad Manners' brand of good time party music still sounds as fresh as the day it was penned – although Buster is the only founding member to have lasted the marathon course.

"I always had a desire to perform, but I was a frustrated actor when I got into music," added Buster.

"I chose singing because I love it and I don't understand those bands who stop touring.

"Singing is my life and you can't replace the feeling of jumping on stage and singing those great party songs and everybody going nuts, whether it is to a 60 year-old grandmother or a bunch of skinheads."

Bad Manners Christmas Party, Clitheroe Grand Theatre, Saturday, December 2. Details from 01200 421599 or www.thegrandvenue.co.uk