Former Housemartins and Beautiful South frontman, Paul Heaton, has spoken about his fondness for Lancashire.

Although the music legend – responsible for penning hits such as Perfect 10 and Rotterdam – grew up partly in Yorkshire with strong ties to Hull, the 62-year-old “likes Lancashire”.

He said: “Weirdly enough the Beautiful South always played in King George's Hall in Blackburn, which is a great venue.

“Lots of places around Lancashire and parts of Greater Manchester are really nice places to perform, which we keep coming back to.”

Heaton recently played in Preston’s Moor Park at BBC Radio 2 in the Park alongside Rianne Downey, who he’ll be touring with this winter.

The tour will include a performance at Manchester’s Co-Op Live on December 16, after his other North West show on December 6 at Liverpool’s M and S Bank Arena.

Although a mainstream star since the 1980s, Heaton admitted there is still one thing that worries him while on stage, he added: “The only thing I worry about is getting the timings right.

“For some reason when I was performing in Preston I thought 20 minutes was half of half an hour.

“I get panicky, I’ve got my phone on stage just to check what time it is, but I have got better at timings.

“At Glastonbury this year we got it down to within 30 seconds.”

Despite his angst regarding the clock, Heaton still says performing to a crowd is “a lot of fun”.

“It’s gratifying to know that people know my songs, and they associate those songs with things that have happened in the past.

While on stage at Moor Park, Heaton had fun with the Lancashire crowd by namedropping towns in the county like Blackburn and Burnley to varying responses.

He even recalled how he has visited Accrington to watch the town’s football club play Stockport County.

“I was going to make a reference on stage to an empty stand and ask if it was Deepdale (Preston North End’s stadium), but I thought ‘don’t push it too far,” Heaton explained.

He finished by saying: “Through years of touring from the Housemartins, to the Beautiful South, to now, we’ve got a connection to northern counties without doubt.”