I once went to hear a very well-known folk star who was playing in a Sunday night club, back in the days when pubs shut at 10:30 on Sundays (remember that?). I was travelling by train (the club was on the other side of London from where I lived) and of COURSE the last blippin' one left at 10:25. So I had to get up out of the audience and go, during the nearest applause-break to the end that I could manage.

I was as quick & quiet as I could be, but I suppose there's no unobtrusive way to stand up when everyone around you is sitting quietly. The artist shot me the merest, briefest glance and then looked away, but I have been struck from that day to this by the pain in the man's face. I so wished I could explain to him that I wasn't leaving because I wanted to (in fact I hated having to go before he was finished) but was obliged to if I was to get home that night.

But I was too shy to call out "Train to catch!" as I might have done in later years (it was only about my second time ever in a folk club, I was by myself in a strange part of London and nobody knew who I was). But the memory of his hurt - from someone who had every reason to be supremely confident of his popularity - has stayed with me ever since. It doesn't surprise me that Peter had the same vulnerability. That sensitivity also goes into the making of their art. But what a price to pay.