My Haven

Marking 50 years of Radio 1, the DJ, 79, invites us into the sitting room of his Sussex home

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MY MOMENT WITH JACKO

This is a limited edition ceramic model of the iconic cottage at Craven Cottage, the Fulham FC ground. I’ve supported Fulham since I was nine. I was matchday announcer from 1996 until 2014, and in 1999 Michael Jackson came as a guest of then chairman Mohamed Al Fayed. When I introduced him to the crowd they thought he was a lookalike, but when he got halfway round the pitch the penny dropped and he got a standing ovation.

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GOOD OLD DAYS

This 15th-century miller’s cottage is on the farm my mother and I were evacuated to during the war as her father ran the farm then. I bought it off Junior Campbell from the pop group Marmalade in 2006, a year after he amazed me by saying he lived here – the place I grew up! Back then my window on the world was radio. I’d listen to variety shows such as It’s That Man Again. This framed collection of cigarette cards – a gift from the film producer

Peter Walker – depicts the broadcasters of my youth.

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ALL ABOARD

I’ve always loved buses, particularly the iconic Routemasters. As a youngster growing up here I had Dinky toy buses – two red and two green. I told a friend of mine, and now every time I visit him in Worthing, Sussex, he gives me one of these buses. I must have about 50 in my collection now, including one he had specially made for me as it was the bus we used to take from the station to this farm all those years ago.

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GOLDEN OLDIES 3

DIDDY AND DODDY

I began my career in 1959 with the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Cologne when I persuaded the bosses they needed a rock’n’roll show for the troops while I was doing my National Service there. Then in 1960 I became an announcer for ABC-TV near Manchester and in 1967 I appeared with Ken Dodd on the ITV series Doddy’s Music Box. I’m 5ft 6in and Doddy gave me the nickname ‘Diddy’ which has stuck ever since. In 1990 I bought this ‘D1DDY’ numberplate. I was with Radio 1 from 1967 until 1977, followed by nine years on Radio 2. On both stations my record of the week was called a

‘Hamilton Hot-Shot’ and I was thrilled when this compilation album of them made the Top 20 in

1976. One track is by Eric Clapton, who I knew. After I married my wife

Dreena in the Caribbean in 1993 we bumped into Eric at the airport, and Dreena told him she loved Wonderful Tonight. Eric told us he’d written it for his ex-wife Pattie Boyd and said, ‘I hope it brings you better luck than it brought me!’

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CLEVER DOGGY

Dreena and I have five children from our first marriages, but we don’t have any children together. We’ve had three dogs though. Dreena commissioned this bronze of our first dog Rosie, a labrador/ setter cross who died in 2001. We then had Mr Max, a Gordon setter who used to watch Strictly with us and dance in front of the telly to the theme tune. We now have Amber here, a five-year-old spaniel whose party trick is to turn her head when people talk to her. I had my first dog when I was growing up here, a sheepdog called Scamp, and I’ve still got a poem I wrote about her.