SO ABBA and The Bachelors are back in the album charts, radio stations everywhere are on a nostalgia trip and veteran star Sir Cliff Richard says he's aiming for a number one hit with his latest single.

He may be 67 years old and far from cutting edge, but it's hardly surprising that the man they used to call the Peter Pan of Pop wants to get back to his chart-storming ways.

For if he succeeds in his goal he will also romp into the record books as the only recording artist to have achieved number one hits in six consecutive decades.

Which is why almost exactly 50 years after his first hit Move It sent British teenagers into a jiving rock n' roll frenzy in September 1958, Sir Cliff is pinning his hopes on a new single called, appropriately perhaps, Thank You For a Life-time.

Now a millionaire businessman with interests that extend from wine to perfume, the tennis playing born-again-Christian pop singer has the necessary financial muscle and music-business connections to give his new song an extra push.

Released next month to mark the half-century since Move It established him, albeit briefly, as the UK's very own post-war answer to America's pelvis-thrusting rock god Elvis Presley, the single is expected to be launched with a concerted publicity campaign.

A message on Sir Cliff's website already urges fans to buy it, saying: "With the singles market gradually dying... this could be the last chance for Cliff to achieve his sixth decade ambition."

Intriguingly, Thank You For a Lifetime will be backed by a "lost" track he recorded more than 30 years ago. The tortuously-titled Mobile Alabama School Leaving Hullabaloo was originally recorded back in 1977 but was mis-filed in the studio archives and only came to light recently. Indeed, Sir Cliff says he can't even remember the recording session. This of course is the kind of admission that would come as little surprise from many of his hard-living contemporaries, but from squeaky clean Cliff Richard?

Now resurrected, the track is also due to appear on an eight-disc retrospective due out next month as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations.

Strangely enough, Move It, the original single which turned the then teenage Harry Webb into chart-busting pop sensation Cliff Richard, never made it to number one. Instead it sat precociously at number two, kept off the top of the charts by the likes of Connie Francis. His first actually number one was Living Doll - already a softer more melodic sound - in July 1959.

A string of number ones followed including classic hits like Please Don't Tease, The Young Ones, Bachelor Boy, and Summer Holiday in the 1960s, We Don't Talk Anymore in the 1970s, Mistletoe and Wine in the 1980s and Saviour's Day and The Millennium Prayer (his last chart-topper) in the 1990s.

Thank You For a Lifetime will principally be sold as a download - and if you want to buy it over the counter you'll have to go to Woolworths. Despite a recent announcement that it would no longer stock singles, the company is apparently making an exception for an exclusive retail deal with Sir Cliff.

Of course it is just possible that Sir Cliff's bid for a contemporary number one is an indication that he is hedging his bets over his ongoing fight to extend retrospective royalties.

Along with other pop veterans like Paul McCartney and Roger Daltrey, he's been campaigning for a copyright extension on recorded works that would pay royalties way beyond the current 50-year limit.