Hugh smuggled Leon Trotsky into the charts and more covertly heroin – the real subject of their 1981 hit single Golden Brown.

But he left the band 25 years ago to concentrate on his own recordings – earlier this month he released The Fall And Rise Of Hugh Cornwell, the first anthology of his post-Stranglers career, and he’s just begun a major acoustic tour of the UK.

Here Hugh talks about his formative years in Kentish Town, North London, the band he formed with schoolmate Richard Thompson (later of Fairport Convention fame), and why he decided to go solo.

Along the way he discusses the drug bust that saw him do time in Pentonville prison, biochemistry, his novels and his journey from entertaining gobbing yobs at those dangerously thrilling early punk gigs to literary snobs at the more refined Hay-on-Wye literary festival.