There can be few guitarists with blood in their veins that don't go dewy-eyed over these gorgeous guitars. Yet another genius creation from Ted McCarthy's design team at Gibson, the ES-335, launched in 1958, introduced a new concept in slim-line, semi-acoustic electrics that appealed as much to jazz and orchestra musicians as they did to pop and rock players. Loaded with their recent humbucking noise-cancelling pick-ups, and in a choice of three colours - natural, sunburst and the new-for-'58 cherry - they were an instant success, playing and sounding as fabulous as they looked. You bet I wanted one.

Having returned home to Purton in 1977 and taken a job delivering parcels for White Arrow, I was, after 6 months of saving, sufficiently in funds to go shopping for another guitar. In January 1978, this appeared in the Melody Maker classifieds and, having made the call, I pointed my Peugeot 404 eastbound on the M4 to London to check it out. The guy in the dimly-lit house in Chiswick showed me in and fetched it out.

Oh dear! It was a wreck. The headstock had been smashed off and bodged with what looked like a piece of 4x2 glued in with Araldite, much of which had found its way all over the neck - the back of which had had all its lacquer scratched off. The plastic body-bindings looked as if someone had tried to saw them off with a hack-saw, and there were deep gouges all over the top of the body. The pick-guard was missing. Other than that, it was perfect! I'd driven over 80 miles so I figured I'd at least have a play on it.

And that, my friends, was the moment that guitar was sold. That an instrument could suffer so much abuse and still out-perform practically every other guitar I'd played up to that point, speaks volumes for the magical properties these old Gibsons possess. It's been with me for 22 years now and I'm still in love with it.