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.