Nostalgia for many is the recall of salient memories, not necessarily happy, of those moments that remain imprinted on the mind long after the event.

They might be of fulfilment or a long-standing desire that remains unrealised. My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist, and although I played to an audience of about 200 about once a year, it was on a recital programme together with 20 or 30 other pupils of Kendal music teacher, Mrs Lilian Pentith.

One memorable aspect was that it was on my own piano, borrowed for an afternoon concert at the YWCA Hall, behind Prince Charlie’s House, Stricklandgate.

It was tuned, before and after the concert, by someone from Wilkinson’s Organ Works on Aynam Road.

I did not become a concert pianist, but could play many classical pieces.

My weekly piano lessons were on Natland Road. One day I had to wheel my bike home because, balanced on the saddle and handlebars, I had a dog basket and paraphernalia.

Trotting alongside me was a young wire-haired terrier, which Mrs Pentith no longer wanted. The licence fee for a dog at the time and for years was 7/6 (about 35p). My father was furious, but the dog stayed.

In the RAF in 1952 to 1954 I discovered that with the burgeoning ‘pop’ revolution approaching, I was not only playing the wrong music, but on the wrong instrument.

On my RAF station near Lytham St Annes, someone ‘played’ a guitar. He was the most popular chap in the NAAFI.

But he could only strum three chords. Whatever the tune, he managed to make them ‘fit’ every popular song in that pre-Beatles age.

It did not seem to matter if some bits of most tunes jarred on the ear - all were played and sung with gusto by the permanent staff and the crowds of draftees waiting to fly off any day to world-wide locations.