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Wedges, whatever shoe it was, he’d kicked them to bits while you were still begging your mum for them. He laid down the playground’s sumptuary rules of clothing and we followed them as best our parents’ pockets could afford.

      T.Rex’s follow-up to ‘Hot Love’ was all pouty plosives and hissy breathing, with a dark, feline groove that crawled all over me the minute I first heard Tony Blackburn play it on Radio 1 while I was getting ready for school one morning. After watching them do it on Top of the Pops, I pestered my mother into buying ‘Get It On’ while we were out shopping the following Saturday. The bearded hippy from Pop Inn looked unimpressed as he dropped it into a paper bag and handed it over. I was dying to get back and bang-a-gong with the Puck-like Marc, but on the way home we had, frustratingly, to stop and buy saveloys and chips. As soon as we were in the house I dived into the shopping bag and lifted the record out from underneath the hot chip bag; but it didn’t feel like a record any more. ‘Get It On’ had warped into something resembling a piecrust or a small fruit bowl with crimped edges, the kind Nan would own. The hot chips had destroyed it. There was no way I was going to get another one so I put it on the turntable anyway. As the needle bobbed like a boat on the high sea the sound left everyone in earshot feeling nauseous. I suffered the indignity on behalf ofMarc, and in between gobfuls of the now cold, shameful saveloy, I sang along anyway. Oddly enough, as with that familiar vinyl scratch we all know and love, I now miss the wow and flutter of an unwarped ‘Get It On’.

      It was on a Thursday that the bishop came round. I can say that with some certainty because Top of the Pops was on telly.My mother and father were packing as we were going off to a holiday camp in Westward Ho! at the weekend. The doorbell went and I ran to the window. Below on the doorstep stood the tall man in the maroon robe from prize day. Local kids on bikes wheeled around, staring at him. Someone must have died.

      ‘It’s the bishop.’

      ‘What? For us?’ Mum sounded a little frantic.

      ‘The one from prize day.’

      I’d already told her that he’d spoken to me after I played that day, and that Miss Bannatyne was very excited by it, but I wasn’t sure she’d listened.

      ‘Well, go down, then, and see what he wants.’

      I went downstairs and opened the door. The kids tried to look into our passage, probably for signs of grief. On top of all the maroon material the bishop’s grin sat high on his jutting chin.

      ‘Hello, Gary.’ He was holding a large plastic bag. I stared at him. ‘Are your mother and father in?’

      ‘Er…Yeah.’

      He seemed huge in our little place as he went up the stairs in front of me. His shoes looked worn and dusty underneath the richness of the cloth, as well as a bit odd, as if he were a man in a dress. It seemed a bizarre outfit to be wearing in the street, especially around here, but I assumed he must have come straight from work. I could hear my mother plumping the sofa as we climbed the stairs. I pushed open the front-room door and went in.

      ‘Hello.Mrs Kemp? I’m Trevor Huddleston. I saw your son perform his songs at Rotherfield. The headmistress gave me your address. I hope that’s all right.’

      ‘Oh, right. Come in. Sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?’ She had a different voice on. Oh God, not that voice.

      ‘Yes please.’ She vanished. ‘No sugar. Thank you.’ He took Dad’s chair, putting his bag next to his feet, and I returned to my place on the sofa. ‘I thought you were wonderful at the prize-giving, Gary,’ he said, giving his fist a little shove into the air in front of him. ‘I loved your songs, especially the one about being alone.’

      I could feel my mother flinch. ‘We like the Easter one, don’t we, Frank?’ she shouted from the kitchen.

      My father came in from the bedroom. He brushed his palms together and shook the bishop’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Yeah, we have a record of it we made at Waterloo Station.’

      ‘It doesn’t work any more, Dad. You can’t hear me.’

      The bishop seized his moment. ‘Well, that’s exactly why I’m here,’ he said. I wondered if I’d done something illegal.Maybe even immoral. ‘A few years ago I worked in Africa.’ It occurred to me that that was why his shoes looked so dusty. ‘While I was there I met a young black African boy. A wonderful trumpet player. Still is a wonderful trumpet player.’ His two large hands came out like paddles. For a moment I thought he was going to pray. ‘I gave him a trumpet, to help encourage him. And it has.’ He stopped. Was that it?

      Mum came back in with the tea. ‘Turn the telly down, Frank.’ She put the steaming mug on the mantelpiece above the flickering fake coals. ‘Would you like a biscuit?’

      Top of the Pops was being ruined.

      ‘No, thank you, this is lovely.’

      They’re clapping on the telly and Jimmy Savile is back on introducing the next band. Except for the blond hair, he looks like a younger version of the bishop.

      Dad leant across to lower the volume a little and I shuffled to the end of the sofa, closer to the telly. The singer seemed to be impersonating Mick Jagger, but I loved his feathery haircut.

      ‘Don’t look at the telly!’ my mother snapped. ‘Look at the bishop!’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘He’s come to see you.’

      The bishop smiled. ‘I bought this for you, Gary. If that’s all right with your parents?’

      Out of the plastic bag he pulled a box with a photograph of what I thought was a radio, but my peripheral vision was still half-concentrating on the telly and the guitarist and bass player, who were running around like a couple of cheeky schoolmates.

      ‘It’s called a cassette recorder. Easier than reel-to-reel. I’d like you to have it.’

      I wasn’t sure what this meant and stared at the box as he handed it to me. Philips, it said.

      ‘Every time you write a song I’d like you to record it on to a cassette, write down the lyrics and send them to my house in Stepney.’ I didn’t know what to say and carried on staring at the gift in my hand. ‘Would that be all right?’

      I looked up to see he was asking my father the question and took the opportunity to glance once more at what was too fascinating to ignore. They had a football out on stage now, and their skinny legs and high platforms lazily kicked it around while the mandolin player, or whatever he was, did a solo.

      ‘That’s brilliant,’ said Dad. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much. What d’ya say, Gary?’

      ‘Thank you very much.’

      The singer was singing something about finding a rock‘n’roll band. The bishop could see that I was distracted and a little taken aback by the gift. ‘Do you like pop music, Gary?’

      ‘Er, yeah.’

      ‘I’ve just been helping to put on a charity pop concert with a famous guitarist called Pete Townshend. It’s going to be at the Oval cricket ground. We’re helping to raise money for Bangladesh.’ To my pleasure and relief he turned to the telly. ‘He’ll be playing,’ he said, nodding at the screen, ‘Rod Stewart. With the Faces. And the Who.’

       He knew them!

      ‘That’s nice,’ said Mum.

      Clapping announced the end of the song and the band looked relaxed and pleased with themselves, tousling their funny hair and shuffling around on stage as if they were too full of energy to stop. It looked like the kind of gang you’d want to be in. And suddenly it came to me: that’s what I’m doing. I play guitar; I write songs; I could do that. I will do that. It was a moment of clarity, an epiphany, delivered by a bishop.

      I turned back to him, sitting there in Dad’s chair, swathed in cloth, a heavy cross resting like

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