In all the years I ran my Alexander-busking competition, only one person came close to winning. She was a young student of bodywork and took my whole lecture very thoughtfully. In some ways, I regret never paying her.

To win was simple.

I am 23, in Paris and unexpectedly with the one true love of my short life.

I sit in a café with her. Expectation and ecstasy fire off a flood of hormones that cascade through my bloodstream. Soon I am going to discover how my emotional tumult is a lethal cocktail of hormones that spiral me down into depression and addiction.

Although I finished my “official” Alexander training in the winter of 1980, I like to think I finished it in 1979 because I didn’t bother with any more learning at my School of Alexander Studies.

Once I returned to London from Australia, instead I partnered with Terry Camilleri – a fellow Australian actor whom I shared a home with in Camden Town – to offer a regular workshop for actors at the East West Centre in Old Street.