Rather than just list albums that I presently like, I thought that I'd think of it in terms of albums that have been favourites at various time in my life. Though I may no longer like a particular album, if it was once a favourite, then that is good enough to make the list. It has been an interesting exercise to trawl through the years and think of musical highlights along the way. I have always loved music and have bought lots of singles, LPS, tapes and CDs over the years and have also been to many gigs. Choosing ten isn’t easy and really the way I’m doing this doesn’t actually judge albums as I being the best – they just had a place in my world at some time.

So let me think back to the start of my musical appreciation and take it from there.

I remember that my parents had some records when I was a kid, but I can’t remember what many of them were other than one being Frank Sinatra’s 1956 release called “Songs for Swingin' Lovers”, another being by the Dutch Swing College Band, another being a Glenn Miller one and for some reason there was a record of some of Winston Churchill’s war speeches.

Growing up near my uncles and aunties in Leicester, I would spend time with my older cousins - I suppose that I was shoved onto them and I can't remember much interaction between me and them, but I do remember being with them when they were playing Beatles stuff. I loved the album cover of “Help!” (1965) but I remember that the song I liked most was “Love Me Do” from their first record (“Please Please Me” - released in 1963). I think that I liked that track because of the harmonica playing.

I would have been about 4 or 5 years old at that time, but the first record I remember listening to at home was one that had the Winnie the Pooh song on it - so I liked that song because I liked Winnie the Pooh. And there was also the music to Disney’s version of Jungle Book, so as that came out in 1967, I am guessing that I was 6 or 7 years old.

I also clearly remember listening to the radio and enjoying a song by The Move called “Get the Fire Brigade” that was released in 1968 – a catchy tune for a kid to latch on to.

Between The Beatles and The Move, I did go to my first gig - ok, it wasn't a gig, it was a show. I remember that it was at The DeMontford Hall in Leicester and the variety of entertainment was certainly broad. There was a chap called Reginald Dixon who, from memory, just sat there with a stupid grin on his face as he played a large Hammond Organ that might even have risen from beneath the stage. No singing or other instruments - just him, a stupid grin and crap songs. Then there was other stuff that is just a vague memory of tedium. Then there was Basil Brush - I think that's what I had been taken along to see (I actually met him back stage and he did well to talk considering there was a man standing next to him with his hand up his arse). And the finale was a chap singing in a weird way. I couldn’t understand it - if I sang like that, my mum would have told me off and told me to sing properly or not at all. The singer was Frank Ifield and the stupid man kept yodelling, but not for any reason that I could see - it wasn't that he was drunk - he actually chose to sing that way - weird stuff indeed.

In terms of buying music, I remember that when I moved schools (from Junior to secondary), the class bought our teacher, Mr Lee, the number one single of that time (May 1972). He must have been thrilled that the number one record was “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Paul McCartney. What did we know about music? We were kids and assumed that people liked the song that was at number one – even if it is a piece of number two. Actually, I just looked it up and it is a Wings song – he probably did that so that he could share the blame.

But in terms of buying something for myself, I have a vague (and scary) memory that for a birthday present, I had received a record token that I had used to buy “My Coo Ca Choo” by Alvin Stardust. This would have been around 1973, so how was I to know better at the age of 12.

I know that for another birthday, my parents brought me Elton John's “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” (1975). I took it back to the shop and with the help of a record voucher, I swapped it for Elton's earlier (1973) double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" – I used to play that all the time and therefore that is my record choice NUMBER 1. It is great that Elton’s still around and about and gigging away – he’s been going for all these years and he still has a full head of hair – who would have believed it? I must say that I don’t think much to his wife though – she looks like a man.

The music world at that time was a strange beast. The charts were full of glam rock and acts would appear and disappear at the blink of an eye. Leicester’s contribution to this world was the group Showaddywaddy who dressed as Teddy Boys and sang lots of covers of old rock and roll songs – they had a few top 10 singles and even a Number 1, “Under the Moon of Love”. I loved lots of music at that time, none of it was good enough to keep me interested for too long. I was a big T-Rex fan and there are loads of their tracks that I love, but I don't think that I ever bought an album - this was a time when I was buying only singles.

My sister (Louise) was two years older than me and therefore the music in the house was more of hers than mine. Though she now claims to have been a really cool kid with great and alternative musical tastes, I have no memories of that being the case – I definitely remember there being at least one Barry Manilow album in there. In fact, the first proper gig I went to was with her and her friends - I think one of her friends couldn't make it so I went in that friend's place. I shall make no further comment other to tell you that it was to see The New Seekers (of "I'd Like To teach The World to Sing" fame) - enough said?

But I am a fair man and will say that she redeemed herself as she took me to one further gig (once again because a friend pulled out of it), but this time it was to see the Jackson Five - now that was a great thing to do. I have memories that I might have been on the verge of liking the Osmonds at that time, but that gig brought me back from the brink of dullness into the world of music – if I had gone down that road, I probably would now be a person who listens to Michael Bolton or even (god forbid) Celine Dion.

She also had some music that I liked - she played Carole King's Tapestry a lot and I loved that. And she also played Simon and Garfunkel's, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” which I would have as my NUMBER 2 album - I used to play that (plus their Greatest Hits album) a lot – the songs are still favourites to this day. I was fortunate enough to get to see them play a gig at Wembley Stadium soon after their Concert in Central Park. The Central Park gig was recorded and it is a great record too – when I listen to that, I see them at the gig I was at in 1982.