Steve Drayton from BBC Newcastle wins the prize for the most innovative and imaginative interviewer.

As can be seen from our photo, Steve is dressed in impeccable mod fashion albeit with a ‘rocker-ish’ Tony Curtis hairstyle. He’s a huge fan of popular music born almost ten years later than me, in Scunthorpe. He’s been in Newcastle since college days and is in Durham to interview me in front of an audience of 300 at the wonderful Gala Theatre.

 

Steve arrives on stage with an old record player and a stack of vinyl both 33 and a third and 45 rpm. His plan is to stick on a record related to a chapter of my book and play a minute or so before chatting to me about the memories it invokes.  He plans to do this with six records but in the end we only have time for three so absorbed do we become in conversation. Steve executes his role perfectly finding more or less the right groove upon which to place the needle at the first attempt – no easy task even for a professional DJ.

 

With a reading from the book and audience questions our allotted hour is over all too soon.