I remember visiting my then wife’s common-law step-sister’s husband’s sex shop in Margate. Or he might have been her common-law husband. There was a woman trying on lingerie who kept coming out into the shop to show us what it looked like. Her bloke was there too and didn’t seem to mind.

I remember listening open-mouthed to Duncan Campbell’s talk to myself and fellow students at the London College of Printing. He was of course then the crime reporter for the Guardian and had many interesting anecdotes to tell us, particularly about a fellow reporter in cape and black fedora whose name will one day return to me. But it was Campbell’s relationship with the actress/goddess Julie Christie that made me hang on every word.

I remember visiting Simon Rawles, a fellow student at LCP, when he was working at the Jazz Cafe as its press officer. Jose Feliciano was appearing there that week, and had gone out with a minder or two but had wandered off on his own and no-one knew where he was. Fortunately this all happened around lunchtime and was resolved happily by the time of the evening’s performance.

I remember one of the many pithy statements chalked on the beams of the George in Bridport – ‘if I had all the money I’d spent on drink, I’d spend it on drink’.

I remember reading a haiku reportedly by John Cooper Clarke and thinking how clever it was – ‘To convey one’s mood / In 17 syllables / Is very diffic’.

I remember bumping into Edward Woodward, who died this month, in Port Issac a few years ago. He and Michelle Dotrice had been eating in the same restaurant as Margaret and I, the Slipway Hotel, under the awning a table or two away, and I had realised who they were and was getting very excited. After they had left, they obviously went for a stroll around the village because as we left they were walking back to their car. I walked up to him, apologised for the intrusion and told him I thought The Wicker Man was one of the best films ever made in this country. I still can't get over how excited *he* was at my interest. He had been involved that year in quite a few re-release for DVD projects and seemed genuinely grateful for any praise offered. I pointed out that Mrs Woodward hadn't done too badly herself. They laughed. At the time I couldn't remember what she was famous for - just that it was something archetypal. Of course she was Betty to Michael Crawford's Frank Spencer! A lovely man and a lovely couple.