Stirling is faces free. Brighton’s different. That’s not why we visited the city, but it was great to see them, on the street, beside the beach, in cafes, on stage, and even better when one of them came calling. I had five minutes of fame on Southern FM thanks to Dave Cash, although if truth be told, the person I should thank is Suzi.

I’d never seen Star Wars. But film-buff Suzi had. ‘Ring him,’ she’d said. ‘You do it’, said me. ‘No. You’re better on the phone.’ I’m not, but I’m used to doing what I’m told!

It was one evening in our flat on the cusp of Hove. I rang his researcher, provided the quiz question answer, and was told by her, ‘Dave might get back to you’. Dave did. I guess it was because I had a different tale to tell. We chatted away. Dave was good. And generous: he said he’d send off the prized DVDs despite my admission that I’d never seen the movie and that my being on the show was all down to my better half.

Today, Suzi’s informing me the question was What character was played by Alec Guinness? Although seeing Alec in Sussex was unfortunately by then impossible, we did spy several other thespians: Shirley Anne Field at the Theatre Royal in Daisy Miller; inside The Cricketers, the star of an eighties TV series about a well-meaning but rather hapless poker player – and outside The Cricketers the lady formerly known as Jordan; an actor whose name eludes us, in The Lion and Lobster, and a similarly impossible to place actress having afternoon tea in the Sanctuary Cafe ; an elderly female member of The Eastenders cast partaking in the 2005 Gay Pride parade and yet another female stalwart of yesteryear browsing in Marks and Spencers.

Faces we shared an auditorium with included Ned Sherrin, on top form at The Old Market, a venue we made repeated visits to as it lay in the Zimmer Zone, and where Cynthia Lennon talked about John and a frail but still immeasurably engaging George Melly talked about George. During the 2006 May Festival we were astounded by the voice, stamina and athleticism of Movin’ Melvin Brown in the Steine and enthralled by Christopher Hitchens in The Dome.

Our street walking was rewarded too: at the junction of Western Road and Landsdowne Place a former BBC sports reporter (male); outside the Mad Hatter a newspaper columnist (female); near Barneys, alighting from a Humvee, an ex-boxer (male); and striding purposefully along the promenade, briefcase in hand and smartly suited, a man I’d last seen in running shorts thirty years earlier – and that was on the tele.

But unless you’re pressing the flesh, you can’t get much closer to a face-come-genius than I did in a Brighton taxi. One day on our way to the station the in-car conversation culminated with the driver turning round and saying to me, ‘He sat where you are.’ Poor, pathetic me swelled with pride. That was six years ago, but it might as well have been Yesterday! Thinking about that moment still gives me a wee frisson, but nothing like the one I got chin-wagging with radio Dave. Maybe you’ve met loads of celebs. But to how many have you been able to say, Obi-Wan Kenobi?

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