DEREK the Draw was Ian Dury’s bodyguard for years, so it was a natural step for him to take over singing duties when the original Blockhead and his best friend died in 2000.

“We got in some really big scrapes together, but it was a golden time in our lives,” said Derek.

“Ian once said the difference between him and Paul McCartney, was that Macca could run away from a bunch of crazy fans, but that he couldn’t.

“That’s why he always needed a minder.”

Dury’s music, lyrical strength and deadly-accurate observations of everyday, British working class life lives on in the Blockheads, who make a welcome return Clitheroe’s Grand Theatre on Easter Saturday.

“The only brief I had from Ian was to help him on stage and to help him off again,” recalled Derek. “Ian called it my holiday job.

“I’d had known about Ian’s personal aides before I took a job, though, and they were pretty wild characters.

“There was The Sulphate Strangler, he was a bit mean, you know, but hard as rivets.

“Fred the Spider and Big Ray were fearsome characters. I think maybe Ian quite enjoyed that because it was all part of the image.

“I said to him, ‘I’m not going out to get involved in punch ups Ian - I’m an old hippy really'.

“Then I came up with a plan and I said, ‘I’ll look after you – I’ll cuddle them to death instead.”

Dury may no longer be with us but the Blockheads music continues to inspire art, films and musicians.

The barnstorming 2010 film, Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, charted the some times troubled life of Britain’s punk poet laureate, who defied the crippling effects of polio to pen some of pop’s most potent lyrics.

Take a trawl through the 1970s archives for their hits – What a Waste, Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick and Reasons to be Cheerful and they sound as if they were recorded yesterday never mind 40 years ago.

“It is 15 years since Ian died and I still miss him terribly,” added Derek, who has written all the lyrics on the Blockheads last two albums.

“I think the songs have stood the test of time because they are about gritty subjects that are just as relevant today.

“Looking back, it scared the living daylights out of me when I started singing in the Blockheads.

“It was certainly not a thing I’d ever wished for because we all thought Ian would be around forever.

“But the Blockheads aren’t a tribute act - we are not sat in the past, we’ve written a lot of new songs, and I’m intensely proud of all of them.

“Ian never got the credit he deserved because he was every bit as clever a vocalist as say, John Lydon, for example.

“He could be a difficult man, a live hand grenade, and maybe because he did upset a few people in the music business that was a bit detrimental to him and the Blockheads.

“Punk is 40 years old this year and yet Ian is very rarely mentioned when people talk about that era.

“But for me, though, he was the godfather of punk – the ultimate rebel really.”

The Blockheads with support Jeramiah Ferrari, Clitheroe Grand Theatre, Saturday, March 26. Details from 01200 421599.