I remember the Swiss army knife I got as a freebie from some computer game company or other. Eliot cut himself with it the first time he picked it up. I don't think my dad was impressed – and not just because it was his carpet Eliot was bleeding on.

I remember picking up a songbook in a charity shop, along the lines of Little Boxes and Other Songs by the person who wrote Little Boxes, whose name escapes me. We were visiting Wendy (my mother-in-law at the time – I’m not sure if she’s still my mother-in-law, presumably not) in Southend. We also met some RNLI crew members in the pub.

I remember bumping into Lee Remick in a shop in Chichester. Or rather gawping in awe as she looked at a stand of greeting cards.

I remember fruit-flavoured Polos.

I remember a friend telling me he had spent two hours that morning in bed listening to his parents bickering. Which had confirmed his need to move to Australia almost immediately. And now he’s gone.

I remember Auntie Betty (not really and aunt – a family friend) saying a cat had jumped over her pram when she was a child, by way of an explanation for her fear of cats.

I remember folding tabs on stage, invariably with at least one other person.

I remember putting away the awning very carefully each time so that it stayed in pristine condition. Initially with another person but eventually on my own. But I still took it very seriously.

I remember being rescued from an upturned dinghy a few hundred yards off the south coast.

I remember recording the Tiffin King Lear cast in a performance of the play at Beaconsfield. The cast included the daughters of Paul Daneman and Dorothy Tutin. We made them run around the grounds in the pouring rain to record the chase scene. And mixed it years and years later.

I remember St Osyth, the Sussex Club and Elmer Sands, and like to think I have carried on the tradition by sticking largely to Golden Cap and Chapel Amble.

I remember VJ 8055, Margorikki and the VW campervan.
I remember eating at the Key Cafe in Wimbledon, a place by Kingston bridge near a shop that sold latex, or on special occasions the Pot in Earls Court. On one very special occasion at a restaurant in Kensington Church Road. 

I remember on one birthday singing Bob Dylan’s Forever Young for you in the garden. 

I remember doing this all before. Happy 85th birthday, Dad!