In 1994 I was working and living in the north-east of England, while maintaining a home in central London., A friend named Arline, having been given the use of my London home for a visit to the metropolis, repaid my hospitality by inviting me to a performance of Re Joyce! at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Lovely Arline.  A far from wealthy school teacher.  I felt somewhat embarrassed at accepting her kind offer, particularly since I could afford better seats than those in the gallery that she had booked where my defective hearing was barely able to cope with the magnificent performance of Maureen Lipman.  Nevertheless, I was determined to produce some sort of gesture of thanks.

Coincidentally I had just read Maureen Lipman's How Was It For You? and had recently seen a repeat of her solo performance on TV as The Bag Lady , a short play written by her husband Jack Rosenthal. This suggested a strategy to me.  I decided to surprise Arline by arranging a meeting with Maureen Lipman in her dressing room after the show.

How I achieved this, and the amusing experience, is described in some detail elsewhere in this chronicle.  Suffice it to say that Ms Lipman's assistant confirmed to me, when I went backstage during the interval, that "Maureen can give you just two minutes after the show"

Later, when we were taking our leave,  I held out my hand to shake Maureen's, saying "Please excuse my chutzpah . . ."   She cut me off.  Gave me a cold stare, and yelled: "YOU NEVER APOLOGISE FOR CHUTZPAH!"  And then she grinned, to let me know she was just kidding.

This memory - this injunction - inspired the strategy for a book about the driving force behind my life's achievements and the way in which the filaments of my life have been woven into a skein of connections.