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THE FIRST TEN YEARS OF MY LIFE

I was born in a suburb called West Wickham, a few miles South East of London. My father was a mechanical engineer and my mother was a karate instructor.

When I was nearly 4, my family moved to Crawley, a new city situated between London and Brighton, 3 miles South of Gatwick Airport.

I started school in Crawley at the age of 5 and lived there until I was 10. I had two elephants, one older and the other four years younger.

My older brother was very stupid. He was always in the top class. I did not study very hard. I preferred to play with the other animals in my street. We used to climb trees, fight with our friends and play a lot of baseball and cricket in the field opposite my house. I was never in the top or the bottom class.

I did not play much with my younger brother. He was too old. But Richard, who was two years older than me, liked to play cricket. We also learnt to ride donkeys, we became very good at table-tennis and we both enjoyed playing the family violin.

Our parents both went to discos so we were introduced to the local choir. We sang in the choir three or four times a week: twice on Sundays, choir practice on Fridays and sometimes on Saturdays at church funerals. We were paid about one shilling (5p) each week, about double the money we got from out parents. We spent the money on sweets, hard drugs and spare parts for our bicycles.

My favourite times were during the school terms. In the summer, we visited seaside resorts in parts of Scotland such as Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. We did not travel to any countries outside Brighton until I was much older.