“My father always said I would do something big one day.‘I’ve got a feeling about you, John Osbourne,’ he’d tell me, after he’d had a few beers.‘You’re either going to do something very special, or you’re going to go to prison.’And he was right, my old man.I was in prison before my eighteenth birthday.”

“He [dad] always had some kind of trouble with his leg. He’d have bandages wrapped around it all the time but he’d never go and see a doctor. He’d rather have dropped dead than go to a doctor. He was terrified of them, like a lot of people his age were. And he’d never take a day off work. If he ever stayed at home feeling ill, it was time to call the undertaker.”

“Like my father always said to me, if you ever pull a weapon on somebody – no matter what it is – you’ve got to be fully prepared to use it, because if you’re not, the other guy will see the doubt in your eyes, and he’ll take it off you and use it on you instead. Then you’re really in trouble.”

“I stomped down the hallway, twisted the latch on the front door, and yanked it open.‘Are you… “Ozzy Zig”?’ said Guy Fawkes, in a thick Brummie accent.‘Who wants to know?’ I said, folding my arms.‘Terry Butler,’ he said. ‘I saw your ad.’That was exactly what I’d hoped he was going to say. Truth was, I’d been waiting a long time for this moment. I’d dreamed about it. I’d fantasised about it. I’d had conversations with myself on the shitter about it. One day, I thought, people might write newspaper articles about my ad in the window of Ringway Music, saying it was the turning point in the life of John Michael Osbourne, ex-car horn tuner. ‘Tell me, Mr Osbourne,’ I’d be asked by Robin Day on the BBC, ‘when you were growing up in Aston, did you ever think that a simple advert in a music shop window would lead to you becoming the fifth member of the Beatles, and your sister Iris getting married to Paul McCartney?’And I’d answer, ‘Never in a million years, Robin, never in a million years.’It was a f**king awesome ad.”

“It’s funny, you learn a lot about people when you’re on the road like that. Every morning, for example, Bill would have a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and a beer. Always in the same order. I asked him why he did it once.‘Well,’ he said, ‘the coffee’s to wake me up, the orange juice is to give me some vitamins to stop me getting sick, the milk’s to coat my stomach for the rest of the day, and the beer’s to put me back to sleep again.’”

“I hardly ever went to the AA [alcoholics anonymous] meetings. I’ve just never felt comfortable in those places. It’s my worst zone. I’ll get up and sing my heart out in front of two hundred thousand people at a rock festival, but when I’ve got to talk about the way I feel to people I’ve never met before, I can’t do it. There’s nothing to hide behind.”

“He was a good guy, my old man: simple, old-fashioned. Physically, he was built like a feather-weight, and he wore these thick, black Ronnie Barker glasses. He would say to me,‘You might not have a good education, but good manners don’t cost you anything.’ And he practised what he preached: he’d always give up his seat on the bus for a woman or help an old lady across the road.A good man. I really miss him.”