Who is the central character of the 1967 single "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera"?

Even more than 50 years after its 1967 release, if you explored all the radio channels on offer, at some point you would probably hear the plaintive refrain of a children's choir asking "Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, is it true what Mummy says, you won't come back?"

It was, indeed, conceived as part of an entire opera, and was the conception of record producer Mark Wirtz (born 1943). The familiar lyrics were put to it by Keith West (real name Keith Hopkins, also born 1943, pictured) who recorded the most familiar version of the song. It is among those iconic songs that never made it to Number One in the charts.

Though classed as psychedelic pop, the lyrics tell a surprisingly bourgeois story of a village grocer who closes down, and whose erstwhile customers only appreciate him when it is too late.

Despite the interest shown in it by, among others, Cliff Richard, and the release of a couple of other songs, the "Teenage Opera" project remained incomplete, and "Grocer Jack" is the only part of it ever regularly played.

But the concept remained influential, not least on the Who's (completed) rock opera "Tommy".