Goodbye and thank you

I am surprised at my reaction to the news of the death of John Peel. I was a bit choked. Maybe it was because when I was at boarding school I usually went to sleep with my radio on, earphone in, tuned into the man himself. He was the last person to speak to me every night for quite a while.

There was the one occasion when everyone in my dormitory had received the severest bollocking due to a bit of a rumpus after lights out. There were a couple of nervous sniggers after the house master left and then it was finally quiet. There must have been over twenty of us in that dormitory. I decided that the fun must be over and so reached out from under the covers, plugged myself in and turned on my "radio cassette player", which was parked on the chair by my bed. How we all laughed (particularly as I was awarded detention); I’d plugged the earphone into the microphone socket.

Anyway, thank you very much Mr Peel, (you must be inundated with thank you messages wherever you are), sorry you had to leave so suddenly.