Dee was born on 28 July 1935, in Manchester, Lancashire, the only child of Cyril Edward Dodd (1906-1980)[REF] and Doris Gwendoline Pilling (née Simon) (1907-1952) who married in 1934 in Salford (a Radio Caroline biography gave his birthplace as Ottawa, Canada) [REF].
He served his compulsory national service in the Royal Air Force photo-reconnaissance unit, taking aerial photographs of the combat zone during the 1956 Suez Crisis, and being wounded in the face by a sniper in Cyprus.