I worked at the Steel Company Of Wales when I was 17. My job was to supply tools to the guys working the blast furnaces.

I'm having a great life. And I'm 73 and they still phone me up and ask me to do a job here and there.

The reward is in the doing of it.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

My father wasn't a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher - one of those Victorians, hard as iron - but my dad was tough enough.

For me, time is the greatest mystery of all. The fact is that we're dreaming all the time. That's what really gets me. We have a fathomless lake of unconsciousness just beneath our skulls.

I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with-life's too short.