DARTFORD’S favourite sons Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are multimillionaire stadium rock megastars.

But there was a time when the pair could be found slinging rotten tomatoes at each other behind a greengrocers in Chastilian Road.

The play fight happened during the first six years of Richards’ life which he spent living in a two bedroom flat with his parents above what is now the Darling Buds of Kent florist.

Owners Andrew Dellow, 51, and Lorna Chapman, 52, were regaled with the story when the guitarist pulled up outside their shop in a black Chrysler PT Cruiser one day in 2008.

Mr Dellow said: "He was a really nice chap; a gentleman.

"You see the look of him and you think he’s a bit of a wild man but he had a lot of time for us."

Richards was researching his autobiography Life when he stopped by his first home just round the corner from Wentworth Primary School which he and Jagger both attended.

News Shopper: Keith Richards' first pad.

Keith Richards spent his first six years above this Dartford florist. 

Ms Chapman says the luxury of Richards’ pad in Connecticut is probably far removed from the small bedroom above her shop in Dartford where he started out.

She said: "The size of the whole flat is probably the size of his bathroom out in America.

"You wouldn’t have known it was him, he was so discreet.

"He had about five sugars in his tea and bought some flowers. "By the time word got out that he was here he was gone."

The axeman spent around an hour reminiscing about life in Chastilian Road where he lived with parents Bertrand and Doris until the family moved to Temple Hill when he was six.

Stones fan Andrew has around £1,000 worth of band memorabilia including a guitar passed around by fans during gigs which cost £300, but the most precious is his signed photo of when Keith came to tea.

The shop gets around a dozen visitors a year from as far afield as Japan and Brazil to pay homage to where Richards spent his early years, and featured in a film by luxury brand Louis Vuitton for whom the guitarist did a campaign.

Mr Chapman said: "I never used to be a big Stones fan but now I’ve bought all their records."