I landed on planet earth to the screams of my poor mother on Wednesday June 6th 1962 at 15:00, or 3pm in old money. “Never again”, she was heard to say afterwards, and like with most things she said, she meant it. I imagine that my father was in the betting shop at the time, as back in those days the Epsom Derby was run on a Wednesday, and it was a big event. Larkspur won the race under Neville Sellwood and trained by the Irish legend Vincent O’Brien, his first winner of six in the race down the years. I’m told that the midwives at Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Exeter were cursing me, as they had to miss this annual televisual feast to pull me kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties. I was a sickly child, to be honest. The flat my parents rented in St Leonards, a more upmarket district of the city, was in an old Victorian house. It was damp and cold…