“I grew up having to piss in a bucket ’cos there was no indoor shitter, and now I have these computerised Japanese super-loo things that have heated seats and wash and blow-dry your arse at the touch of a button. Give it a couple of years and I’ll have a bog with a robot arm that pulls out my turds, so I don’t have to strain.”

“They said I would never write this book.Well, f**k ’em – ’cos here it is.All I have to do now is remember something...Bollocks. I can’t remember anything.”

“The only gig I can remember playing in those very early days — and I think it was with Rare Breed, but it could have been under a different name, with different band members, ’cos line-ups changed so often back then — was the Birmingham Fire Station’s Christmas party. The audience consisted of two firemen, a bucket and a ladder.We made enough dough for half a shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), split six ways.”

“During the first break-in I grabbed a load of hangers and thought, 'Magic', I’ll be able to sell this stuff down the pub. But I’d forgotten to take a flashlight with me, and it turned out that the clothes I’d nicked were a bunch of babies’ bibs and toddlers’ underpants.I might as well have tried to sell a turd.”

“All those Jesus freaks ever had to do was listen to my records, and it would have been obvious. But they just wanted to use me for publicity. And I suppose I didn’t care that much, ’cos every time they attacked me, I got my ugly mug on the telly and sold another hundred thousand records. I should probably have sent them a Christmas card.”

“‘All I can say is that I lost two of the greatest people in my life,’ I said, trying not to choke up. ‘But it ain’t gonna stop me because I’m about rock’n’roll, and rock’n’roll is for thepeople, and I love people, and that’s what I’m about. I’m going to continue because Randy [Rhoads] would have liked me to, and so would Rachel [Youngblood], and I’m not going to stop, ’cos you can’t kill rock’n’roll.’”

“The only good thing about having dyslexia is that dyslexics are usually very creative people, or so I’ve been told. We think in unusual ways. But it’s a very bad stigma to have, not being able to read like normal people can. To this day I wish I’d had a proper education. I think books are great, I do. To be able to lose yourself in a book is f**king phenomenal. Everyone should be able to do it. But I’ve been able to get through an entire book only a few times in my life. Every blue moon this thing in my head will release, and I’ll try to read as many books as I can, because when it closes up it goes straight back to the way it was, and I end up just sitting there, staring at Chinese.”