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My deepest respect to the clubs who considered having me.

When you're not part of a club, you have to find another way of surviving.

Entertainers, athletes, and stars started giving me support.

There have been some hard times, people around me supported me.

I was in 30-plus clubs when I was 14 years old.

I had a family that supported me.

I started acting as a way to support myself.

It sustained me... I can't tell you how much their support meant to me when I was leaving and coming back and even while I was gone, there was a part of me that knew people were pulling for me.

I have similar feelings, actually. The intimacy of a club: you can see the people, you can almost feel them; you can't beat that. People will say things, and shout out, it's almost like they're up on the bandstand with you.

As an Anglo-Indian kid in Bolton, I was basically in a minority of one. That was a source of misery, but at the same time, one of the effects of receiving the message that you don't belong to the club is that you watch the club with detachment. The fact that no one quite knew who I was was a major contributory factor in starting to write.