I do see Ray Davis from time to time. My son's Godfather is Bob Whitbread (ex Mayor's consort of Gosport). Bob is Ray and Dave's nephew and was raised with them. He was their drummer before they hit the big time and left to join the RN. Almost as soon as he left out came "Waterloo Sunset" and the rest is history. So Ray turns up at Bob and Angela's birthdays and wedding anniversaries.

Merry festive season, Susan, to you and yours.

Hi Suzi, I thought that you might like this FB page https://www.facebook.com/groups/gosport.area/ It's run by an old mate who you may or may not know, Dave Rowland. Well, remembering that you had history with the town and links to the old record shop on "Squeezegut Alley", I thought you ought to know that the shop has come up as a subject of conversation lately. Here's a piccie to prove it...

I was thinking about Gosport Festival earlier and remembered this: I met Dave Pegg (of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull) at the festival one year and gave him a cheque for £1.68p to pass on to Ian Anderson. He said that he would give it to him but asked why and I told him that I'd just been watching the 25th anniversary tape of Tull at the end of which Anderson says "I'd like to think I could have a drink with any one of our fans," then looking directly at camera he adds, "but you're paying!" I told Pegg that this was the price of a pint of bitter in Gosport at the time.

We used to buy knicck-knacks in a little shop on Stoke Road, opposite Oliver's Bar, called "Rainbow's End". It was run by Ray Shulman, one of the Shulman Brothers (of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound and Gentle Giant) and I was telling him and his wife about the cheque. Ray said "He'll cash it as well! He's a right miserly bastard!"

It all happens where and when you least expect it!

Yes I was on the door, well tent flap, for all of those. I offered Roy Wood a piece of honeycomb toffee out of my hat and shook hands with the great BB King. Do you remember Duncan the Biscuit, the funny little guy who did the puppet shows with an out of work Sooty and a farting frog called Gusto? We went to his funeral a couple of years ago and it was almost as funny as one of his shows, it was so good that you wanted to bump into him the following day and tell him all about it!

"If you ever went to the Gosport Festival when it was on Walpole Park I probably took your ticket stub off of you."

Indeed, I did many Gosport festivals - amongst others, I saw The Blues Band, Manfred Mann, Strange Girls [Toyah and Girlschool], Roger Chapman, The 'Roots Night' (Pele, The Dhamas, The Burundi Boys), Tom Robinson, Roy Wood, Roger Taylor, Del Amitri etc

Similarly, if you ever went to the Ritz Cinema during the same time period, I probably took your ticket, and if you ever visited 'The Record Cellar' in Bemisters Lane, I probably served you!

I joined up in '86 after Maggie said no to industry, married and lived in Hardway, Gosport from '87-95ish. Pearl, my long-suffering other half, was a Borough Councillor for Hardway & Elson. Then we moved to Fratton in '97. If you ever went to the Gosport Festival when it was on Walpole Park I probably took your ticket stub off of you.

Hi honey. Thanks for the add x

As it happens, I used to live in Portsmouth. Was in Gosport 1978 - 2004, and then Hilsea from 2004 - 2007!