They took her away the other day, and I wasn't even there to say goodbye. A man with a clipboard called round while I was out, checked her details and loaded her into the back of a van: my guitar.
It was guilt that prompted me to get rid of her in the first place, guilt at not playing her for years. But now I feel guilty again. All the assurances from IRMA Trust that they'd find her a good home can't wipe away the feeling that somehow I've let my trusty six-string down.
We never made it to Glastonbury, but we shared some good times after she arrived in my life on my 13th birthday. On those well-worn strings I lashed out tunes of teenage angst and strummed tributes to love and discovery.
Older woman
And my guitar introduced me to girls. Well, a girl: Sandra, my first and only guitar teacher.
The thrill of being alone with an older woman - in her sitting-room - was almost too much for a boy of my age. My fingers trembled as she placed them delicately around the neckpiece in the chords of A and D for my first ever tune: She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain.
About eight years older than me, Sandra was just within romantic range - or so I reckoned; and from the first day, I made it my mission to try to impress her with my speed of learning. If I was good enough, I thought, I would apply to join the local church folk group, for which she was the star performer.
The image of us playing together to a packed community centre audience drove me on in those early days. For her, I tirelessly practised Mull of Kintyre, Fernando and her favourite, Streets of London, even though I found it unbearably morose.
The discovery that Sandra had a boyfriend came as a shock. It caused me to cancel the next few lessons and retreat into the lonely sanctuary of my bedroom where I strummed Streets of London late into the night and suddenly found myself enjoying the experience.
Depression turned to rebellion, however, as I reckoned it was about time I cut my ties with the choir girl and started getting some street cred. My party piece medley of Our God Reigns, Let There Be Love and Walk With Me, Oh Lord may have pleased the parents, but it earned me little respect from my mates.
So I formed a band. More precisely, one of my brothers who fancied himself as a poet decided to write some lyrics for which I composed tunes from the 12-odd chords in my repertoire. One of our earliest "successes" was History, a self-mocking parody of corny cabaret songs which, when repeated over and over again, made grown adults - our parents - weep. It went like so:
It's just history,
It don't matter to me - no more.
It's all in the past and at last,
I can be free-ee-ee.
Boy bands
But in the tradition of boy bands the world over, as soon as we felt we were successful, we split. It was an ugly clash of egos and the recriminations persist today. Each Christmas dinner, we still argue over who deserved credit for the addition of "no more" in the second line of History.
As the relationship ended, so my solo career began. It was launched with a series of instrumental compositions which explored new techniques such as plucking and picking. They were new to me anyway.
I can safely say I "arrived" with Dawn Run You're Lovely, a song inspired by that magic mare on whom I had won some money in the 1986 Cheltenham Gold Cup. I always felt the tune was ahead of its time and this was confirmed to me when I heard My Lovely Horse featured in the Father Ted series. Craggy Island's mock Eurovision song contest entry was uncannily similar in rhythm and content to my ditty, so much so that I wondered whether Graham Linehan or Arthur Matthews had sneaked into my bedroom one night and stole the concept, like, from my music book.
My magnum opus, however, came some time later. I Wish I Could Sing was more than just a masterpiece in self-depreciating humour; it was a precursor of the melodic balladry of such bands as Blur and Radiohead. Never have three chords - C, Em and Am - been stretched so far. They stretched a full 12 minutes, to be precise. Over and over again I played those chords as I cried aloud the desire to "sing", a metaphor for the will to express the world's mysteries in terms that did them justice.
Perfection
That's how I like to think of my musical career - a struggle for perfection. And in I Wish I Could Sing I felt I achieved it.
That, as I said, is how I like to think of my days as a musician. The truth is I was always useless at the guitar and should have got rid of it years ago. I was inspired to do so, however, only with the recent launch of IRMA Trust's instrument bank. My guitar is joining more than 150 instruments already donated to the project for youth groups and bands from disadvantaged areas.
I can't help thinking, though, now that I've formally drawn the curtain on my playing days, that if I'd kept practising I could have eventually mastered the thing. Alas, that's just history now.
Just history. Hmmm. I feel a song coming on.
Anyone seeking to donate an unused instrument can call IRMA Trust at 1800 923 017. Instruments are collected free of charge.