I remember sweet cigarettes. And sweet tobacco, which was yum.

I remember a transvestite called Duffy who used to hang around Wimbledon village. The story was that he had a shock of black hair but his wife left him and overnight it went white. Then he started dressing as a woman and, this being in the Seventies, he started being banned from pubs.

I remember going to see the film adaptation of Le Grand Meaulnes with Julian Vahrmann. I think it was at a cinema in somewhere like Chelsea and because we were running late we got a taxi rather than a Tube. We just paid the correct fare, and because we didn't give the cabbie a tip he shouted at us. We legged it into the cinema.

I remember going for an interview at the BBC and seeing Gillian Hills in the foyer. I had fallen in love with her when she was in the television adaptation of Alan Garner's The Owl Service. She was also in Blow-Up and Clockwork Orange.

I remember Red Shift and Elidor were also televised. I always found it annoying that Red Shift would be classified as a children's book in the library and in bookshops.

I remember indoor fireworks. And jumping jacks. And flying saucers.

I remember Den Gibbard - my ex-wife's mother's common-law husband, if you get my drift. He was probably one of the kindest and gentlest men I have ever known, with a lovely sense of humour. I hadn't seen him for five or ten years - he was suffering from Huntington's chorea - but yesterday, on my birthday, I went to his funeral.