IN JANUARY 1983, JANICE Long left Radio Merseyside for a job at BBC Radio 1. She phoned me up at home and asked me if I'd be interested in reading my poems on her new show. I was buzzing. Then, seemingly from nowhere, Craig Charles (with whom I had done many gigs at Phil Battle's Left Bank Bistro events on Mathew Street and other venues around town) began to read his stuff on Janice's new evening show and that was the end of that! All the same, Janice had been the first person to broadcast me on the radio a year or so before – this was now major league not just for Janice but for Craig Charles.

I'd been sending a few tapes of songs from the Chester sessions out to various labels and the quick reply I'd received from Cherry Red really heartened me, not least because they'd said the songs sounded like The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds! It also arrived along with a copy of Cherry Red's influential label sampler Pillows and Prayers, which I enjoyed.

They said they wanted to hear more, so I went back to the Chemist studio in late January to record three new songs: ‘I Learnt My Lesson’, ‘Baby Don't Worry’ and ‘I Don't Like Hanging Around’. I got another note back from Cherry Red, this time saying the songs just didn't hit them in the heart. Fair enough. Looking back, these songs didn't have the simple, naïve charm that the first session had, but Cherry Red's initial enthusiasm was a real breakthrough. It gave me the incentive to keep on trying.

Jeanette discovered she could get a transfer to London with her job, so we decided to take the plunge and move down. Ros helped out by putting us up for a few weeks in her and Brendan's flat off Bell Street, near the Edgware Road, until we found a little room with a tiny kitchen at the back of a house in College Place in Camden Town NW1 above the old Greek landlady's own flat.

Our landlady had hutches full of rabbits in her back yard. We'd thought this was lovely, but then one day we heard the most horrific squealing from the yard, prompting Jeanette to see what was happening. She came back in tears, saying she'd seen the landlady wringing a rabbit's neck.