This may seem a strange choice but I have to say that Mike Batt has probably written more songs with which I have identified than anyone else. I don't mean songs which I like but songs where the lyrics mirror, or typify, parts of my life.

I am not sure whether I learned about him from his writing of the hits for The Wombles, which my eldest children liked, or for the beautiful title song he wrote for the film of Watership Down, called Bright Eyes. Secretly, I hope it was the latter, which I subsequently rewrote for a friend.

He has had a varied life both in and out of music, including taking nearly three years to sail, with his family, to Australia via France, the West Indies, South America, Central America, Mexico, California, Hawaii and Fiji.

He has produced musicals, written one based on Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark, worked in both the pop and classical field and, all in all, had a pretty successful life.

It is, however, his lyrics, combined with a certain melody, that brought him to my attention and which I particularly like. He worked for almost ten years with Katie Melua, another artist I really enjoy. In 2004 I wrote to Mr Batt asking if he would be interested in developing a song I had written for the educational project I was then working on. The song was called “Peace by Piece”. He didn't reply. In 2005 Melua released her second album called “Piece by Piece”. Just saying.

We are going to get the two for one bit out of the way immediately this time. Bright Eyes, which I haven't chosen, was sung by Art Garfunkel, he of the Simon and Garfunkel duo of the sixties. Subsequently Mr Garfunkel recorded some more Mike Batt songs and it was this one, “As Long As The Moon Can Shine” that I first heard, I think, back in the eighties. It was part of the Hunting of the Snark album. My personal life was not good at the time and I was beginning to find a relationship that I hoped would be the perfection that I so craved.

As you listen to this selection, which I have just done, I think the one theme running through is the dream, the hope, the wish that what you think you have found will be as it seems and as you want. Funnily enough, when asleep, I rarely dream. Now I know experts will say I do and they may be correct. If they are then I rarely remember my dreams. But, when awake, I dream all the time. I imagine how a situation might be, might develop and look at all possibilities. To date, the dream, the day dream, has never worked out as I wished.

The second song, “Sometimes When I'm Dreaming” has a similar theme. Always, with one notable exception, has let me down. Some just a little, some quite a lot and many completely. I do then often find myself alone and I have learned not only to live with it but to positively enjoy it. I have sailed away.

When a relationship began to fade, I didn't give up immediately. For a while I would have this hope that my partner will change and share my romantic view of life and will somehow become that perfect person for me. Now, after 6 failed attempts, I know this unlikely.

This song I heard one morning in the mid-nineties. I found it and played it to my partner at the time. I thought she might react to the feeling that I thought there was someone (her) who heldthe key to my whole life. She reacted. She said it was a soppy song, stupid.

I still love it and am still looking for my dealer, the one who's body I like but whom I love because she is wise. The one who conceives my rebirth, the one to turn my key, the one to teaches me how to earn their love.

The dream theme continues. The idea of dreaming in colour because we live in black and white, the idea that our dreams liven up our grey, dull lives, is beautiful and, I think, very true. Whether, like me your dreams are while you are awake or whether, more conventionally I think, your dreams are while you sleep, your view could well be that nothing is better than that dream.

Somewhere we all have that “distant door” that we long to go through and find paradise. How wonderful if that door is actually another person, a person who can take you beyond your dreams and into that hazy place of illusion.

Thought I'd let Katie Melua sing this one.

My last partner and I planned to write a book about our experiences both personal and professional. We were going to call it “on The Walls Of The World”. Sadly, after just a short time, I learned what writing it together meant. I would come up with the ideas, I write it, she would read it and tell me what I should change either because I hadn't praised her enough or I hadn't given her enough credit or I had quoted something she had actually said but she didn't want anyone to know. Needless to say the book didn't get very far.

When I first met her, this song was a favourite of mine. The idea that normal things like the sun shining suddenly became more apparent epitomised what I was feeling. As it happens, during our relationship of some 7 years, I wrote her over 100 poems. Toward the end of that relationship, I showed these to a friend and she came back, after reading them, and said so you knew it wouldn't last. I asked how she got that feeling. She told me simply that she would never recognise the person I was writing for and about. “You have made her into what you hoped she would be not what she is”, she says. “You're very intuitive, you must have known that even if you tried to ignore it”.

She was right, so right.

This is such a nice video, I'm giving Katie another go.

This was the only live performance I could find of Mike Batt and the song, which Katie Melau among others also recorded, is the perfect follow on to my last bit about that last relationship. It did have some really nice high points but there were incredibly low ones and they took me closer to crazy than anything else in my life.

It hurts to listen to this and I don't want to make any other comment except to say every single word resonates. I hope Mr Batt was writing from his imagination. I wouldn't wish anyone to experience the feelings the song so brilliantly portrays.