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In musical terms, I had a peculiar summer: centred around four long interviews with the ex-members of Slade, the raw material for a feature in Mojo magazine. One-time guitarist and glam titan Dave Hill was like a one-man sub-plot in Saxondale; bassist and co-songwriter Jim Lea had required 20 years of therapy to get over the compromises involved in vast success but seemed to now be OK; and drummer Don Powell had moved to Denmark. Noddy Holder, meanwhile, met me at a London hotel and gave me three enlightening hours, which peaked with his explanation of their career-defining 1973 hit Merry Xmas Everybody. It was no work of yuletide hackery, he insisted; rather, it was intended to raise the country’s spirits in the midst of industrial meltdown, power outages and Ted Heath.

A week later, I pulled up at a set of Hereford traffic lights with Slade’s Greatest Hits on the car stereo, which duly reached the song whose chronic familiarity had long since bred indifference . But not this time: suddenly, I was about six years old, the 1970s were in full grim effect, and - even though it was mid-August - it was Christmas. “Look to the future now, it’s only just begun,” advised Noddy. And, in instinctive tribute to Slade’s shining genius, I actually - no, really - shed a tear.

John Harris

Happy whatever to you and yours.