Bout five or six years ago I was gigging loads of old peoples homes - two or three most days.

One night in Derby, after the gig, I sat down to cathch my breath next to this old gentleman.

You ever been beaten with a stick? he suddenly said. I wondered if he hadn't liked the act. However, I was too tired to brush it off with some facetious nonsense - so I admitted three of four times when I was eleven or twelve - it had happened to me.

My Dad used to beat me with a stick, made a proper job of it...., and the old man told this story about how after the war, he'd married a Derby girl and worked as a park keeper in Derby - but he was born on cider farm near Taunton. And when he was young he used to steal the cider and if his Dad caught him, it was the stick for certain.

Mind you I used to drink the best cider, he said, if you ever get inside a cider farm - the first pressing is the ONLY one. The second pressing is nothing in comparison. I always got the first pressing, it was worth risking getting caught....

Anyway I said my goodbyes, and picked up the money and headed off, as one does.. But next time I went there about a month later, I made sure I had a couple decent bottles of cider to take him as a present.

Unfortunately he had died a couple of weeks before. They'd gone to wake him one morning, but he was gone.

So I pass on to you his wisdom... Always get the first pressing if you can. Sometimes its worth the risk. And perhaps another conclusion you can draw is - make sure your kids have nice memories of you, those memories will be one of the last things they have left.