This has led to me writing a selection of experience-based stories, with a handful of dad jokes thrown in for good measure (four kids – I’m well qualified!). Then, a couple of months back, Peter Holding asked if I could share a little more about myself and how I got to where I am today.

So, without Eamonn Andrews and his big red book (younger readers are lost already), I thought I would start with a question I loved to use whilst interviewing pop stars of my youth when I presented on my hometown radio station in Coventry: “Where did it all go right?”

In 1986, the John Hughes character Ferris Bueller claimed, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!” Wise words indeed. 1986 was also the first full year of my music career, which had started the previous summer at the roller disco when the DJ went to grab a drink and asked me to put a couple of records on.

That drink turned out to be a 30-minute break, so it was just enough to give me a taste of the DJ life and convince me that that’s what I wanted to do. (Although I do wish he’d warned me about the dual impedance microphone switch – feedback at my first attempt!)

Prior to this experience, I had already decided that my chosen career was radio. “I’m going to be a radio presenter, sir!” I told my teacher in the school careers class. “You need a proper job in engineering, computers, or in an office,” came his reply. The argument ended with me saying, “Tick whichever box you want, I’m going to be a radio presenter.” I knew what I wanted – music and chat – and that moment at the roller rink showed me a faster route in through mobile DJing.

In the early years, I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who encouraged me. They saw something they liked in me and provided brilliant advice – without Martin Shaw of Silver Sounds Disco (how 80s is that name?) and Lee Paul of the Aero nightclub in Solihull, I would have given up within a year or two. Martin was the DJ who took me for a drink and started taking me to gigs with him. Then it was Lee who gave me my first nightclub residency in 1987 (as a Coventry City supporter can I apologise now to Tottenham supporters – it was our year!). [Ed: It’s OK, we can’t really blame you for Gary Mabbutt’s knee].

As I started my musical journey, I discovered an old ‘Disco Mix Club’ album in a second-hand shop. That album changed everything. It contained a mix called ‘Higher Than High’, which included loads of Hi-NRG tracks mixed by the late Alan Coulthard, an absolute legend who became a good friend in later life. It blew my mind that music could be mixed by BPM to take the listener on a journey. I was soon mix obsessed and the James Hamilton chart with BPM became my bible.
In hindsight, the problem for me was that the mix became more important than the crowd. I was choosing the next record more by its suitability to mix rather than whether it was the right track for my dancefloor. I just couldn’t see that then; I was too busy looking down.

Then a miracle occurred in the form of a disaster that changed everything. There I was, summer 1987, with my first nightclub residency under my belt. I wasn’t even old enough to be in the venue, my 18th birthday still a couple of months away. My world crashed when I discovered my bright orange Austin Allegro (I told you it was a disaster!) with its doors open and devoid of the vinyl that had stuffed the boot full. My car had been broken into and all my records were gone.

I called the owner of the venue to tell him I couldn’t work for him any longer and...


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