However, such mainstream aspirations were definitely becoming priorities for the record company. Opinions were expressed about musical details. Fred Frith's totally original violin break on "I'm A Believer", might intimidate influential disc jockeys, etc.

The follow up - Chris Andrews' song "Yesterday Man" - was shelved. I was told that the boss considered it "lugubrious". I looked that up in Alfie's trusty Shorter Oxford Dictionary: "doleful" it said, and "dismal". And it's true, in that my rather plaintive version of the tune was a long way from Chris Andrews' original merry march-band stomp.

My newly acquired gimmick of going round in a wheelchair was also frowned on in some circles: the producer of Top Of The Pops asked me to sit in a normal chair while singing "I'm A Believer". My wheelchair was not suitable for Family Viewing.
I lost my rag but kept my wheelchair. Alfie remembers that the words of the song contrasted dramatically with the look on my face as I sang it. Until that moment, the only really serious problem I'd come across as a paraplegic was that I could no longer clamp a wine bottle between my thighs when trying to open it. The Top Of The Pop Experience was my first encounter with para-prejudice. It was a shock, to be honest. And it was becoming increasingly clear that I just didn't have it in me to put on the required show-biz act.

At the same time, the two-album-a-year contract with Virgin was beginning to have the same effect on me that headlights have on rabbits. I began to withdraw into the comforting shade of domestic privacy, and the company of my poignantly anonymous new pals in the battered remnants of the old communist party.

PS

I'd meant to do a Neil sedaka song but, typically, got the wrong Neil...