Bryan Adams: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

Billy Maher on Radio Merseyside just played Katherine Jenkins' version of this song, which brought to mind a particular memory.

Growing up in Wales, as I did, we were required to learn Welsh until the end of year nine (aged 14). In year nine, we were taught Welsh by one Mr Aneurin Roberts, who spent most of his timetable teaching PE. So, because he was not a full-time member of the Welsh department, he was not afforded one of the nice classrooms. Instead, he had to teach most of his Welsh lessons in a dishevelled mobile classroom.

For that year, every Wednesday after morning break we would file into the dank surroundings; I would take my seat next to Hayley Leigh. Hayley was a sweet girl; attractive, outgoing and kind. She was a lovely friend to have.

There was only one problem: in every Welsh lesson in year nine, Hayley would start singing Everything I Do, usually without warning. I absolutely hated that song. It was the number one selling single in the UK for sixteen consecutive weeks of 1991; I was thoroughly sick of it by week three.

The last time I saw Hayley was in 1997, a few days after we had started sixth form. The course that Hayley had wanted to take was cut at the last minute due to lack of student numbers. So Hayley - and another friend, Saskia - left to attend the further education college in the next town. My last contact with her was in a 'phone call on my seventeenth birthday, all those years ago in 1997.

So although I hate the song with a passion, hearing it makes me think fondly of Hayley, and makes me wish I had been better at keeping in touch with people.

Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts

The first girl I ever fell in love with was Jenny Heywood. I was seven years old at the time.

Earlier that summer, our family had relocated to Sussex from north Wales. I was faced with the challenge of adjusting not only to a new village, but also a new school and new people. Not to mention the fact that the road signs were unilingual.

Jenny was in my class right through junior school. I took an instant shine to her; even then, I was able to recognise a very pretty girl when I saw one. However, like most seven-year-old boys, I was unable to adequately deal with all of these new feelings. I consequently kept most of them bottled up for years.

Jenny seemed to like me, though. One time, during one of Mrs Morice's lessons, she kissed me on the back of the neck. Just like that. Out of the blue. It had an impact on me; I can still remember the moment clear as day. Just as clear is the memory of how stunned and surprised I was. My face must have been a picture.

I recall that Jenny was a passionate supporter of animal welfare, and organised several petitions on such issues as the transportation of farm animals. I signed them; I doubt very much that I properly understood the issues, but I trusted Jenny and wanted to make her happy.

In our final year in junior school we fell out. I can't remember why, but I seem to recall I behaved pretty idiotically. We never made up. That summer, as we made the transition to secondary school, my Dad was transferred back north, and we returned to Wales.

I never saw her again.

So to the musical connection. During the late eighties, Neighbours-hysteria was hitting its peak. Jenny, like many girls at the time, had a crush on Jason Donovan. Even today, every time I hear Too Many Broken Hearts, I still spare a thought for the pretty girl with the hazelnut-coloured hair.

I wonder what she's up to now?

George Benson: Star Of A Story

The winter of 1996 was the last time I remember seeing really heavy snowfall.

I lived in Flintshire at the time, and can remember sitting up in my room one evening watching an enormous blizzard sweep across the farmland behind the house and envelop the village in a foot-and-a-half's depth of pristine whiteness.

It was also about the time that I started listening to jazz. The conduit was Jazz FM, a radio station that taught me that jazz was not just about tedious Dixieland bands and Frank Sinatra records. It also taught me that George Benson was actually one of the world's greatest guitarists and not, as might have been surmised from most of his output in the early eighties, a second-rate Luther Vandross wannabe.

I had bought a copy of Benson's 1980 album Give Me The Night, from which this track is taken, about a week before the snow hit. My abiding memory is of sitting and listening to this song as the snow banked up against the window.

It's funny how these little things seem to stick.

Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars

This song will forever remind me of two wonderful months, in which I learned an awful lot about myself and others.

In that time I was given a level of confidence that I never thought I would have. I was refreshed, renewed and renovated.

Although it all came to an end sooner than I wanted it to, I couldn't possibly be bitter or resentful. It was all too good for me to ever be ungrateful.

You gave me so much; thank you for everything.