I'd always been a Beatles fan. Right from the beginning I had been in to music and whilst I never mithered my parents for much the one thing I wanted more than anything else at the age of 13 was a guitar. I got one and then promptly left it to rot when I realised playing it was a tad more difficult than I had imagined.

Jim Blackman: Pictured in 1967. Jim got me started playing guitar at school but told me in 2008 that he gave up playing himself when at university he met someone that 'was sooooo good'..

In 1967, as I was starting 5th form, a guy at school called Jimmy Blackman brought his guitar in one day and started playing and singing. Shit he was good and more importantly, the girls loved him.

Hmmm… Jim said that if I dusted down my discarded guitar, got some new strings and was serious he would teach me how to play. Next day I brought the guitar in to school. Jim tuned it and then taught me how to play three chords. I was a rock and roll star.

By 1970 I was taking the guitar very seriously but was nowhere near as good as I thought I was. A group was formed with some mates and the odd acoustic set performed. Work and college were a real chore, even football had fallen by the wayside - not even Chelsea beating Leeds in the FA Cup Final that year made me put the boots back on.

1970: Unplugged - Mick O'Sullivan, Eric Salmons, Ian Hunter

Getting around with a guitar was a bugger on the Lambretta. It had to be slung over the shoulder in a case and you had to hope you didn't take out any pedestrians if you rode too close to the kerb. It also meant relying on being able to plug in to someone else's amplifier at the other end. There was no way a Vox AC30 would fit on the front rack.

Progressively my mates were all giving up two wheels for four but I was having none of it. Basically this was down to money. When I got paid I still had a life. When my mates with cars got paid by the middle of the month I had to buy them a drink down the pub after they had made their HP payments and filled it up with petrol.

The SX150 was running well and was extremely reliable. My only mates at that time with two wheels were Ray Gould who had a motorbike of some sort. I could not tell you what it was but we used to often go out often for runs at the weekend until he hooked up with a girl called Rosemary who lived down on the south coast. He was always there. He probably still is.

Ian Hunter on Ian McClellan's immaculate GP150.

The others included Ian McClellan who had a very new and tidy blue and white GP150 and Ian Morris who had an old S3 Li150. The three Ian's.

Ian Morris went off to University to study political science and I have never heard of him since. Ian Mac is on the distant fringes of my network but I could call him for a chat no problem.

June 18th saw a general election in the UK and with the new law bringing in voting at the age of 18 years and 3 months I was amongst the first teenagers to be able to vote in a new government. Alas, as usual I backed a loser as Ted Heath ousted Harold Wilson.