I got the letter about becoming a Sir in 2000, the same year that Pauline asked me if we could finally get married. My assistant, Colette, called up and it turned out both the wedding and the Buck House ceremony were happening on the same day. I was knighted at 11 and married at four. She became an instant Lady.

I think I was really naïve. I had no context to think about what I wanted to do. Each step was a next stage of exploration.

It [piano lessons] wasn't a priority, but it was an interest and through that I became acquainted with classical music, which was a main interest at the time.

I was there [in school] the full time with one teacher, and the student body was never more than 10 or 12 students of all ages.

Fortunately, I had cousins who lived in Buffalo and would often go to visit them, which I loved to do because I liked Buffalo as it was a big city. Even today, the bigger the city, the better.

One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn].

We've got a nation of people who have one eye looking out for the next speed camera, another looking for a speed limit sign and another looking at the speedometer - which is a bit of a shame, when you only have two eyes.