Alan Plater describes this book as "memoirs of a jazz-crazed playwright - some of the stories are autobiographical and some of them are true."

It started the day he heard Mood Indigo at his grandparents' house in Jarrow and continued in his prolonged adolescence when he fell in love with cowboy bands, failed to tune a zither, and perfected the arts of invisible juggling and under-achieving escapology. Then, slightly to his surprise, came a life and career that have brought him a CBE, two CDs, three BAFTAs, four honorary degrees and fourteen grandchildren.

Music has been the vital ingredient throughout his life, with an extraordinary range of collaborators, including Alex Glasgow, the Watersons, Dave Greenslade, John Dankworth, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Kenny Baker and Alan Barnes – not to mention Ben Kingsley and Robert Powell, who were drafted in when the Beatles weren’t available to work in Stoke-on-Trent. This book is written with the laconic wit and eye for the surreal that distinguish so much of his work in radio, television and the theatre. It includes original illustrations by the author.

As he said to the Queen at his investiture: "forty-five years without a proper job. That's got to be some sort of achievement."

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