That’s me in the corner

Actually, scrub that. That’s me in the spotlight. In the middle.

Going back to where you grew up is always a nostalgic experience. The streets you grew up on (not literally, obviously, I’m not the Littlest Hobo or anything). The park you played in. The school you went to. The shops you shopped in. The houses your friends lived in.

Of course, in reality it’s a bit weird. The streets I grew up on have been pedestrianised, or blocked off and turned into front gardens to make the place look more attractive. The council have decided to build a replacement primary school on what’s left of the park I played in, having built ticky-tacky box houses on half of it already. The school I went to is now some trendy business and enterprise school. The shops have all become either building societies or coffee shops. And most of my friends seemed to move house every year or so, and hardly any of them live there anymore anyway.

So imagine my surprise when I was presented with this page of the local paper.

‘What is he doing here? Do you recognise anyone in this picture?’

Um. Yes, actually. That was me (yes yes, I know you all want to know the name of my stylist, but they’ve long hung-up their scissors). I am famous. In fact, not only am I famous, I’ve met Steve Davis. STEVE DAVIS!!

Quite a big deal for a boy of 8 or 9 who spent most of his days playing snooker in his spare room with a specially-made waistcoat on. I got a morning off school too to go and meet him as he opened the new sports department in the Co-op. Everyone got a signed picture of Steve, signed in silver pen (I still have it). In true Ferris Beuller style, someone from the paper took my picture, and by Thursday everyone knew I didn’t go to the dentist, or whatever excuse my Mum must have made up.

Funny isn’t it. You expect to go back and feel nostalgic as you go passed places, you don’t expect the nostalgia to come to you!

More pressingly, why did they think he needed a bodyguard in a small Suffolk market town. Any why is he taking such a nervous look at me?