I remember finding a dead spider in a tin of Co-op peas back in the days when there was a Co-op at the bottom of Central Road in Worcester Park. I wrote a letter of complaint in the hopes they would send me a hamper full of goodies in compensation. All I got was something like a 25p voucher and a letter of apology, saying: "We are sorry that you found vegetable (sic) matter in your tin of peas."

I remember wearing only black for a couple of years - not because I was an existentialist, but because I did a lot of backstage work.

I remember finding out that Donovan was in the audience at a school production of Treasure Island. I really hated him at that time for "copying" Bob Dylan. I remember sitting with fellow crew members on a sofa at the side of the corridor lying in wait for him when he came backstage after the show, wondering how we could trip him up and make it look like an accident. Although I did go on to buy A Gift from a Flower to a Garden and I liked Goo Goo Barabajagal, my feelings about him are still pretty much the same.

I remember the cover of my school rough book had "I love folk. I hate pop" written on it.

I remember going to buy Hey Jude. It was the first single I had bought for ages because I didn't buy singles, and I also bought the new Gary Burton album. I think I bumped into Mike Russell in Kingston while I was out.

I remember the listening booths in Maxwell's music shop in Kingston were actual glass-sided rooms that you could go into and listen to your prospective purchases on a gramophone player. But in most places they were like little phone booths that you stood in and they played your record from behind the counter. They had special acoustic panelling full of holes that made your eyes go funny.

I remember once - I think it was in the Co-op in Morden - listening to the Young Tradition's Galleries LP and all of a sudden it seemed to stop and an old scratchy blues record started up. I walked off thinking that they had decided I had listened long enough and wasn't going to buy it. Eventually when I did buy the record I discovered that indeed for the fifth track on the album Peter Bellamy sang a Robert Johnson song - complete with scratch effects. Joker. It also had a great cover.

I remember the deputy headmaster at Tiffins, Ted "Butch" Key, telling us we were all cynics (he meant this as a BAD THING!) "standing on the touchline of life".

I remember my uncle Geoffrey, who died last week, making us all smile and wave out of the car window as we were driven across London - I think it was to Golders Green cemetery - for the funeral of his wife, my aunt Rosemary.

I remember we used to get a train to Box Hill, walk up and down it and get the train home, just for something to do to while away an afternoon.

I remember the radio and electronics shop in Kingston Applemarket, but I can't remember its name. I only found out the other day that it had closed down!

I remember sitting one lunchtime in the back room at the White Lion in Streatham, reading my copy of Folk Roots, and I read that Peter Bellamy had killed himself.

I remember Mr Harman. He was the manager of Streatham 266 back in the days when bank managers were bank managers. I bumped into him on a train yesterday and he remembered me. Especially my juggling skills!

I remember interviewing Millicent Martin for The Stage newspaper. I think it was only for a standalone picture caption, but I was in awe, mainly from the Sixties and That Was The Week That Was (aka TWTWTW, aka TW3). Imagine how in awe I would have been if I'd have known then that she would go on to regular appearances in Frasier.

I remember buying Russell Hoban's The Mouse and his Child in W H Smith's in Bognor Regis at the beginning of one summer holiday at Elmer Sands. I read it in a couple of days and have been hooked on Hoban ever since.

I remember sitting in class in the last year of primary school and not being able to read the blackboard. We used to sit in pairs so if we had to copy anything I would check what my neighbour had written. I think it was Barry Hodkinson. I managed to get away with it until we had a medical during my first term at grammar school. Not only could I not read the bottom line, I couldn't see what the top letter was. Stephen Gatty, who was also in the room, was highly amused. I was sent to an optician and got some glasses - of the Buddy Holly and Hank Marvin variety - which I proceeded to keep hidden in my brief case until my vision had deteriorated even further and I had to be prescribed stronger glasses, which I managed to bring myself to wear in public. So different from Eliot, who is completely unselfconscious, no matter what the problem. I remember going to see him rehearsing with Fragile. His back brace that he had to wear because he had scoliosis was slung in the corner while he had temporarily taken it off.