WHEN Looking Back last month recalled the explosion of beat groups on the 1960s rock 'n' roll scene in East Lancashire, the achievements of one of the region's best-known bands of the day, Burnley-based Kris Ryan and the Questions, were written off as modest, to say the least.

But while Rawtenstall reader Steve Riley agreed with that assessment, he pointed out that one of their members -- lead guitarist Alan "Earl" Kendall -- plays on still as one of the most successful musicians in the pop music firmament...as a key instrumentalist in the band behind the Bee Gees.

He's right -- Alan has been with the Bee Gees band since 1970 and, as Steve points out, can be heard on a good many tracks on the group's original top-selling Saturday Night Fever album.

Now, according to Pete Hibbert, of Accrington, a one-time colleague in the Questions' forerunner, the Burnley-based group, the Strangers, he is a millionaire ranch-owner in California -- having reportedly agreed to join the millionaire pop stars for a 10 per cent slice of their earnings when they spotted him in a London club at a time when their career was in a slump and signed him as part of their plan to revive it.

Says 60-year-old Pete, who, with Kris Ryan -- real name Tony Holgate -- was one of two vocalists once fronting the Strangers: "Alan was a really good player even then -- you could tell -- and after leaving the Questions he joined Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, who had several hits, before joining the Bee Gees."

Painter and decorator Pete, of Aitken Street, Accrington, had a 37-year career at the mike with a clutch of groups, including his own Mark Day and the Knights and one of the first of the East Lancs beat group scene, the 1957-vintage Lennie and the Teenbeats, and still recalls the thrill of appearing at venues like Darwen Baths and Nelson's Imperial Ballroom -- the region's biggest, he says -- on the same bill as such rock legends as Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. For him, it entailed terrific fun and the exhaustion of not getting to bed until four o'clock in the morning after a night on stage and a day in the drawing office at his then draughtsman's job at the former English Electric works in Clayton-le-Moors -- and for not much financial reward.

"I remember appearing at the Majestic in Barnoldswick in 1961 on the same bill as Billy Fury when he was on £250 and our five-piece band -- Mark Day and the Knights -- were on £10," Pete laughs.

But if in Pete, the Strangers produced one of the longest-serving East Lancs popsters and in Alan, an international star who fuelled the fame of one of the world's top groups, they also were also a stepping stone for another musician who made the charts -- Peter Shoesmith, of Nelson.

Peter left the band to work in St Helens, where he joined a South Lancashire group called the Magic Lanterns which had previously included Georgie Fame.

And as well as appearing with the Magic Lanterns on TV's Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go and at Liverpool's famous Cavern Club, Peter also had a slice of fame with the group's discs Excuse Me Baby, which entered the charts in 1966, and Shame, Shame, which hit No1 in Canada and made the American Top 20.

But there was another incentive that fed the 1960s beat group boom -- girls, as is recalled by 60-year-old Mike Sacks, of Stacksteads, the one-time Mike Sax of the Vikings.

The Rossendale group -- comprising sons of well-known Waterfoot tailor Abie Sacks, Mike as vocalist and rhythm guitarist and brother Ray on bass, together with Gordon "Basher" Bailey, of Crawshawbooth, on drums and John Sykes, of Bury, on lead guitar -- was born in 1960 in the skiffle era and got its first booking at Whitewell Bottom Youth Club before soaring to fame by winning of the Kings of Skiffle contest at Southport's Floral Hall just two months later. It was the start of a 13-year spell which saw the Vikings transformed to rock 'n' rollers who toured both locally -- "that could mean Glasgow as well as East Lancashire," says NHS worker Mike, of Miles Avenue, Stacksteads -- and all over Europe as well as recording for the Philips label and making the Top 10 in Turkey with Don't Walk Away.

"We had a following second to none in East Lancashire in those days," Mike adds. "When we used to appear at the Regency Club in Waterfoot in the 1960s, there were queues hundreds of yards long.

"That was a common experience then and girls were always pulling me off stage. I was known as Mike "Make Believe" Sax after the Conway Twitty number we did as part of our act.

"People always sat down for that, but, the rest of the time, the girls were always up on their feet trying to grab me. It was hard work, but terrific fun and I do it all again if I could."