In the 1950s I was a very happy schoolboy in Berlin. I enjoyed school, I had friends, we lived in a fabulous house. Where did it all go wrong?

I loved music, and listened raptly to “Twenty Tiny Fingers”, “You’re A Pink Toothbrush, I’m A Blue Toothbrush” on BFN — British Forces Network, until my friend Tommy, son of a USAF Major, spun the dial on the wireless and new, alien, appalling music filled the air. My feet started to move involuntarily; there was a throbbing, infectious beat. Tommy had tuned into AFN — the American Forces Network — and the music they were playing was very different to the pap I was accustomed to.

Even my father, a severe Army chaplain, was intrigued. He lowered his paper and asked, “What was the name of that last record?” Tommy told him.

And my father started to laugh. He laughed until he cried. His eyes were wet with laughter. He was still hiccupping with laughter a day later. I loved him for it.

When later in the week I went with Tommy to the PX (the American equivalent of the NAAFI) I had managed to scrape together just enough money to buy my first record, as a present for my father, because I loved to see him laugh.

So it was that the first record I ever bought was a 78rpm copy of “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry.

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