[4] After leaving school in 1955, he was a miner at Silverwood Colliery until he suffered double herniated discs after slipping on soap in the pithead baths in 1967, being pensioned from the coal mines as a result.

[citation needed] Shane's first appearance, as a singer, was at the Grafton pub — now demolished — in St Ann's Road, Rotherham.

In May 1979, the comedy writer Jimmy Perry spotted Shane playing Frank Roper in an episode of Coronation Street and offered him the part of Ted Bovis in his new holiday-camp sitcom Hi-de-Hi!.

Shane's performance of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" on Pebble Mill at One in 1996 was voted the 72nd-funniest moment on British television in an opinion poll on Channel 4 in 2004.

[11] In May 2009, Shane was admitted to the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield for heart surgery and made a full recovery.