Various Artists - Rastafari: The Dreads Enter Babylon 1955-83

Not my album, this – it’s my wife’s.

Not my anecdote – it’s also my wife’s: she was teaching adult education in Birmingham. The class was mainly men from a Caribbean background, including a couple of rastas, and one white lady in her fifties with a west country accent, who's a bit of an odd-one out.

Anyway, one day the woman tells this story to her classmates. As a little girl, she lived in Bath. She used to walk to and from school through a park and would stop and talk to an old gent who used to spend his days sitting in the park. She’d go home and her family would say, “Did you see your friend today?” and she’d tell them about their chat. (It was a different age.) Anyway, that old gent was Emperor Haile Selassie, who was exiled in Bath at that time. Collective jaw-dropping.

My anecdote: our band had given up supporting big name acts. It was almost always an awful experience. Then someone offered us the support for Laurel Aitken at the Market Tavern in Kidderminster and we made an exception.

Aitken, who appears on this album, was making a living playing to the ska/skinhead/scooterist crowd around the UK.

So, we turn up at the venue and there’s Aitken, in a pork pie hat, bomber jacket etc, looking like the full rude boy. I think, rather cynically, that he must be dressing to impress his audience, you know? Anyway, he was really delightful and friendly to us - which he didn't need to be.

Just before he plays, he pops into his dressing room and changes out of his rude boy clobber into his stage gear: a Val Doonican sweater and slacks.

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