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.