LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONS As mentioned before my dad used to be a racing driver during the 1950s and ran his own team in the 1960s, travelling all over Europe in his trusty Volkswagon van with his two mechanics and driver. He didn’t have big sponsorship money behind him and most of it was done on a shoestring but he came back with lots of funny stories of their van breaking down or some rural ‘hotel’ that they had stayed in. From each country that he visited he always brought me back a d...

PARTY ON! One of the great things about living in a stately home is that you can have a wild party with the loudest of music – and no-one will hear it! I was now going out with Kev, whom I had met at college. Mum was a bit disappointed that my sensible boyfriend and I had parted company after 18 months of an on/off relationship but she begrudgingly accepted Kev into the fold and eventually met all the other members of the band. I think she wanted to put her mind at rest that they were a bun...

BECOMING A ROCK CHICK: My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave. The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them! Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns, not like the ones at Eton and Harrow – mine were more like the ones in the Beano! However, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into Uttoxeter every lunch time to meet up with a group of guy...

HYSTERICAL PRODUCTIONS: By the end of 1974 we had done about 40 banquets and they were still going strong. Most of the original cast were still with us but we were on our second king now and also doing our own catering and bar, whereas when we first started, we had got a catering firm in to do it all. Every weekend over 200 people came to sample our Noble Brose, Roast Lambe and Saracen’s Delight and sing along to ‘I’m Henry VIII I am’ whilst drinking beer, wine and mead. But it was a...

RAGS TO RICHES: My parents were married in Derby in July 1952. Mum was 19 and dad was 36 so quite a bit older. They both lived in Derby and were very arty; my dad went to the Derby Sketching Club in his free time and my mum attended art college. I’m not sure where they met but it was either at something art related or at a dance, as was usual in those days. My dad was a sculptor by trade; I think his interest was sparked by seeing all the beautiful alabaster in Italian churches during the...