In the early ‘80s, young musician Mike Nolan was approached by composers Nichola Martin and Andy Hill to record some demos for songs they wanted to enter in A Song for Europe, the show in which Britain’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest is selected – in particular a catchy little number called Making Your Mind Up.

“They said if the song got through they’d put me in the band,” remembers Mike, now 60. “I didn’t really want to be in a band but they said ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s just a one-off thing, it’s never going to win’!”

But 34 years after winning Eurovision with Cheryl Baker, Jay Aston and Bobby G, Mike is still in the group, still touring the country singing all the old hits and, yes, still ripping the girls’ skirts off. And, despite the protracted legal wrangling and hostility between Mike, Cheryl and Jay on one side and Bobby G on the other over the name Bucks Fizz, he’s still enjoying every minute of it.

After taking the world’s most famous musical competition by storm in 1981, in Mike’s home town of Dublin, Bucks Fizz became household names the world over, releasing more than 20 singles over the next few years, including three number ones – Making Your Mind Up, My Camera Never Lies and Land of Make Believe. They sold in excess of 15 million records, and spent 219 weeks in the UK charts.

But along with the highs came some spectacular lows – notably the December 1984 coach crash that injured several crew and all four members of the group, with Mike suffering serious head injuries and internal bleeding and falling into a coma. He recovered – although he still suffers the effects today – but had to stop working for six months, and at the same time tensions within the group were growing, with Jay leaving in 1985, breaking her contract, to be replaced by Shelley Preston who herself left the group in 1989.

Now a three-piece, Cheryl, Mike and Bobby continued recording and performing into the early 1990s, until Cheryl left in 1993 to pursue her budding TV career and have a family. Two new girls were found to replace Cheryl and Shelley, but then Mike left in 1996. After that it all gets a bit messy – Mike joined a different incarnation of the group with three other performers, while Bobby was off with another three, including his wife Heidi Manton, who now owns the name ‘Bucks Fizz’.

In 2004, Bobby, Mike, Cheryl and Shelley reformed briefly for the Here and Now tour, going by the name of The Original Bucks Fizz, and then the latter three continued touring under this name as a three-piece, with Shelley leaving again in 2009 and Jay returning for live shows. In 2011, the three were involved in a legal dispute with Bobby over the use of the Bucks Fizz name, with the result that they were no longer allowed to call themselves The Original Bucks Fizz – hence their current, rather clunky, moniker Cheryl, Mike and Jay – Formerly of Bucks Fizz. Bobby is using the name Bucks Fizz with his own group, which does the circuit of holiday camps and cruises.

For this year’s latest tour, Paradise Regained, the trio have recruited a fourth member, another former Eurovision contestant, Bobby McVay, who, as part of Sweet Dreams, took part in the competition in 1984.

“It’s going really, really well,” says Mike of the tour, which started in April. “There’s a really great atmosphere in all the audiences and Bobby’s great to work with, he’s fitting in really well.

“We thought it was very underhand, the way it was all done with the name, but we’re doing well, we’re touring the UK – his group isn’t doing that, are they?” says Mike. “But we just enjoy ourselves and it’s always nice to look back over our history, we’ve got a lot of nice memories.”