I remember Steve Morgan asking me why I bothered to have long hair when I always wore it tied back in a pony-tail. I don't think I had an answer.

I remember Auntie Joan's egg and chips.

I remember Painting by Numbers.

I remember my Dad often brought oscilloscopes home from work. I found the pattens they made fascinating.

I remember believing that Space Invaders and Asteroids were the best computer games ever. Actually I can even remember thinking that playing ping-pong or squash in black and white on the telly was pretty cool.

I remember being allowed to drink port and lemon on special occasions.

I remember when wearing a uniform meant something... (whereas nowadays: on Saturday I went into H Samuel, the jewellers, in Kingston upon Thames, to get a new watch battery, which incidentally, has lasted more than two years because it came with the watch which was a birthday present from my Mum and Dad. I digress. Nice young girl, in a smart dark trouser suit, signifying efficiency, took my details and asked me to call back in an hour or so. Went back at 1pm and nothing had been done. Still in a plastic bag in a drawer. Another man, in a white lab coat, signifying expertise, was berating the man in front of me for using something other than a "special" screwdriver on his watch. "Screws are ruined. Here. Look." And he tried to get the man to look through his "special" magnifying glass at the mangled screw heads. My watch would be done next. Please come back in five minutes. I went back in fifteen. In his white lab coat with his screwdriver he was tightening my screws. I paid my £6.99 and bid him good day. A couple of days later I realised the alarm was virtually inaudible. With my jewellers' screwdrivers (£1 in RKL Tools, my favourite hardware store in Bridport) I took the strap off to find the backplate had been put on upside down. I took it off, corrected it and my alarm now works perfectly. But I don't have a white lab coat, so what do I know?)

I remember that a queue always used to form outside the phone boxes at Golden Cap just before 6pm every day. That's when the cheap rate kicked in and no one had mobile phones those days. It's only in the past year or so that I have been able to get a signal at that location with my mobile.

I remember being told off by my Uncle Jim because of the way I had asked for lemonade. Either I was too rude or too selfish, I am not sure, but I always treated him with suspicion from that day until he died a week or so after retiring. Then I felt sorry for him.

I remember you used to be able to buy singles in Woolworths on the Embassy label. All top ten hits but performed by cover artists. And cheaper than the real thing.

I remember being able to fill the fuel tank of my Triumph Herald for about £1. Mind you I was working in a petrol station at the time so I might have been undercharged.

I remember being caught filling the distilled water bottle of that petrol station from the tap. And it was by a Jaguar owner.

I remember the air-raid shelters around the edge of the school field. They were mostly used for storing old chairs and desks.

I remember we (the Tiffin Musical and Dramatic Society) did a production of Oh What a Lovely War just at the time Britain went into combat with the Falklands and all of a sudden a satire on war wasn't funny any more and nobody came to watch.

I remember the massacre of the village of My Lai by American soldiers.

I remember being made to sit at the end of a table during the second, junior sitting of school dinners with my pudding, which I wouldn't, couldn't eat, in front of me. To this day I haven't been able to enjoy fruit sponge and custard.

I remember "Oi'll give it foive". It was the score out of five that Janice Nicholls, an overnight star of the 1960s, gave for records played during the section of the pop show, Thank Your Luck Stars, in which they "span" new "discs".

I remember being taught to use a pen at school. I think it was at Green Lane but it might even have been Tiffins. The desks had inkwells in them and a groove where your pen could rest and we weren't allowed to dip the pens in more than half way up the nib. Biros were thought to make your handwriting too sloppy, so it probably was Tiffins.

I remember a fashion for stealing the blotting paper out of diaries on sale in Bentalls.

I remember a little road in Kingston on the way to the Coronation Baths. There was a fantastic second-hand bookshop there, where among other things I bought Spike Milligan's Puckoon, which I read in two days, laughing out loud most of the time. When I used to go swimming at the baths, on the way I used to look in the window of a shop there which had displays of Dinky cars and Matchbox cars and so on. It was up some steps.