I only just found out about Diz having "reached room temperature" as I remember him once saying. A very sad loss. I first encountered Diz at a folk club in Bill Quay, where I joined what I now refer to as "Dizley's collection of shrunken heads". I played a floor spot (a 12 bar blues) and was properly chuffed when Diz asked me to get up and join him on guitar. He then announced that we would play "Basin Street Blues" in Bb. I promptly capoed up so I could use G shapes. We were ready to kick off when Diz declared "we don't need the handcuffs, dear boy!" and confiscated my capo! That was me snookered. My last memory of Diz was when he turned up as a guest at a Gypsy Jazz evening in woodcote, South Oxfordshire, about a year ago. He was, by then, too frail to play, but it was touching that, when Ian Cruickshank, the MC of the evening, introduced him to the audience, he received a standing ovation.

He was a lovely man, and a stunning musician.