A depressing number of the people who made a difference to my life will never read any of this. I am hugely grateful to the many people who encouraged me and aren’t still around to decide whether it was worth it. They include;
My mother and father
Miss Cox and Miss Barrow
Thom Keyes
Adrian Henri
Graham Chapman
Clement Freud
Hutch
Noel Picarda
Willie Donaldson
Richard Armitage
Glyn Worsnip
Helen Fry
Andrew Boyle
William Hardcastle
Richard Gregson-Williams
Jamie Todd
John Dankworth
Brian Brolly
Jack de Manio
Brian Wenham
John Ammonds
Ken Stephinson
David Rayvern Allen
Dudley Simmons
Michael Swallow
Peter Skellern
Hal Prince
Michael Bunce
Still alive are others without whom I wouldn’t have got here –among them
Michael Emmerson
Cleo Laine
Patrick Dromgoole
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Trevor Nunn
Tom Gutteridge
Bernard Cornwell
Nick Elliott
Jeremy James Taylor
Jon Nicholls
Esther Rantzen.
Larry Westland
Richard Groom
All of them, alive or dead, took a chance on me. Thank you.