In the early 1970s, when Hugh Scully was one of the presenters of Spotlight, the BBC’s south-west regional TV news magazine, I spent three summers in Plymouth as the lowest of the low, a holiday relief assistant floor manager in the studio.
Hugh was kindness itself in the face of my vast inexperience, and even took the time to ask all sorts of other questions. The discovery of a shared passion for classical music delighted him and he was indeed a walking encyclopedia. I have never forgotten his humble inquiry as to which was my favourite version of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. After some erudite discussion, it then emerged that he himself owned 37 different versions – and appeared to know every one of them intimately.
