Now let’s get this straight. Where Dylan’s concerned I am in no way an ‘anorak.’

An occasional ‘duffel coat’ maybe, but never an ‘anorak.’

Our paths, Mr. Zimmerman’s and mine, crossed for the first time in (I believe) 1962. It was Sunday night and I was preparing for bed following belated completion of my homework and prior to facing a thrilling new week at Enfield Grammar School, when my interest was caught by a television play titled “Madhouse On Castle Street.” Apart from a quirkily attractive central performance from a very young David Warner, I can really only remember the sight of this strange, curly-haired geezer sitting at the bottom of the stairs playing guitar and harmonica (on a rack!) and singing this song – which I have since discovered was called “Black Crow Blues”- in a rough but highly memorable voice and the context somehow made it all seem a lot weirder.

Then, a few months later, I remember Marco Pugliesi, the really cool prefect who sneered at us third formers, swanning round the playground brandishing a copy of “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan.” He then sold his collection of  45’s by great rock ‘n’ roll and r&b artistes for he had ‘seen the light’ and Dylan was the way forward. We all thought he was crazy to offload these gems – a fact that I feel Mr. Zimmerman would readily concur with - but we purchased them hungrily.

Cut to 1969 and I’m wrapping up printing blocks at Westminster Press when this ex- Oxbridge bloke who works in the office asks if I have a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I do and spend every available hour that I’m not in that hellhole running off copies on my mono Ferrograph of the “Great White Wonder,” later to be legitimately released  in the mid 70s as “The Basement Tapes.” For all this turgid, time-consuming toil I received not one silver shilling but my ‘bootlegging’ credentials were assured.

Next stop The Astoria, Charing Cross Road in London’s West End at the tail end of the 80s and I bump into Stan Lynch, Tom Petty’s drummer who I’d got to know through opening for The Heartbreakers across the States in my band “Fabulous Poodles.” He’s over playing Wembley Arena for several nights with Roger McGuinn and Dylan. He points out this hunched, shadowy figure in the corner wearing shades, seemingly oblivious to everything that’s going on around him and another image is burnt into my memory.

In the early 90s Dylan is playing a week of shows at the Hammersmith Odeon and on the Thursday night I’m playing with my band “Ronnie & The Rex” at the brand new Jongleurs club in Camden. I note the arrival during our break of my misanthropic mate John Dowie on the prowl for alcoholic placation. A long-term awesomely loyal Dylanophile, he’s purchased tickets for both tonight’s show and tomorrow’s and just walked out in disgust. “How was it?” I redundantly inquire. “He was CRAP! I’m bloody well not going back tomorrow or ever again.” He then goes on to badmouth my band whilst necking the beers from our ‘rider’ and I’m ready to rip his head off

I smoulder with resentment over this for a couple of days and then I get an invite to a post-gig bash on Saturday night following Dylan’s final show at Dave Stewart’s studio in Crouch End in North London. I arrive around 10.30 after performing a stand-up gig in Islington, and amplifiers have been set up alongside a drum kit and microphones presumably for some late night jam with Bob.

 I throw back the free Buds and chat away to Bob Geldof and The Blockheads’ Johnny Turnball and get twitchy for the arrival of His Bobness.

When he finally makes his shambling entrance around 1.30 I am, as they say, ‘many sheets to the wind’ and it suddenly occurs to me that I should attempt to make amends with Dowie and adopt a Buddhist approach to the situation. I will try to get Dylan’s autograph for him on a “Ronnie & The Rex” promotional card so that he - Dowie -will see how mean-spirited he’d been to so viciously slag off the both of us and he will learn from this situation and become a much nicer person. Mm.

I push forward to get next to the great man but then when Dylan asks me who I am and what I do I murmur something along the lines of “oh, nothing compared to you.” Aaaaaargh!

Dylan, to his eternal credit says “Hey, man, we all of us have something to offer” or some such placating comment but by this time I’m so eaten up with embarrassment I fall into the background to lick my social bruises. Sean Hughes, a chum of Dave Stewart, asks what’s wrong and I spill the whole miserable nine yards of my excruciation and he says he’ll ask Dave to get the autograph for me. He performs this task quickly and generously and I stagger out at stupid o’clock with my trophy safely tucked inside my pocket.

The following Thursday I’m playing a stand-up gig in The Concorde in Brighton and I nervously invite Dowie along. Just prior to leaving I hand him the newly-framed and wrapped autograph and I watch him open it with a twinge of expectation.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“What do you THINK it is?”

“Well it looks like Bob Dylan’s autograph.”

“Well maybe that’s just what it fucking is!”

“Did he sign it with his left hand or his right hand because the right hand ones are worth a lot more money?”

At this I start to lose it but to save a screaming match I storm out the door and leg it to the station feeling hurt and disappointed that someone who purported to be a friend could be so callously materialistic.

Upon arriving back at my gaff in Tottenham I play back my ansaphone and there it is: Dowie’s voice full of contrition; all “I’m REALLY sorry. What a kind and generous thing for you to do and I don’t deserve it etc.” I’m chuffed by this but decide to let him sweat for a bit.

A couple of weeks later and I read this piece in a Sunday paper discussing the individual value of autographs of living legends and there he is at No 1: Bob Dylan worth two hundred and fifty smackers. Ouch! I jokingly phone up Dowie in Brighton and start by saying “you know that Dylan autograph I LENT you” and before I can finish he’s in with “Yeah, two hundred and fifty quid so you can FUCK OFF!”

Somehow it makes it all worthwhile when your friends appreciate your endeavours.