WE’VE worked it out. On a good day, with no delays and the wind in the right direction, it’s just two hours from our cast concrete doorstep in Town to our friends’ black and white chequered- tile one in Brighton.

SERENDIPITY. It’s a word I’ve never been that keen on.

OH, IT’S like someone throwing a pebble down a well and the sound of the echo bouncing back up.’

MANY years ago there was a programme on TV called Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World.

LIKE many folk, I have friends who lost their jobs last week.

WHEN CHANNEL 4 started up, people in Keighley, West Yorkshire, couldn’t get it.

WALKING into Town last week, the Princess and I were looking at all the different houses along the way. Being a princess and her mother’s daughter, she typically liked the big ones. She turned round to me and asked: ‘How many houses have you lived in, Daddy?’

‘SHUT up, I’m trying to get to sleep.’ ‘Dad – she’s turned the light on again.’ ‘I am getting a migraine listening to you crying.’

SATURDAY. The best day of the week. The day after work. The day after school. The day before Sunday. The beginning of two days off.

BRITISH summertime, 1977. I’m stood in the playground of Holycroft Primary School, Keighley, West Yorkshire. The sun is beating down. There are blobs of tar oozing through the cracks in the Tarmac. Kids are running around.