A few years later, when Marise and I had finished going out together, and I had moved into an end-terrace in Main Street, Halton, with Julia Hancell, I decided I would like to play some form of instrument and had whittled the list down to drums or guitar. The guitar won on the grounds that it was a quieter instrument, I didn't know anyone else to form a band with, and I fancied melodies more than just rhythms (I felt, wrongly, that the drums could not be a solo instrument). 

My first purchase was a form of classical guitar made by Gianninni with a very sloping top bout - all the way from the widest part of the back bout in a continuous slope down to the neck joint at the twelfth fret - it is called a Craviola