So this is it, the last show. Eleven weeks since I sat at my favourite table at my favourite restaurant in Southern Portugal and began these journals about being back on the road.

I have to say I’ve had a great time. The band has never sounded better. The empathy between us has never been this good. There will always be differences of opinion, that’s natural but overall, I can’t remember it being this good. As they say, youth is wasted on the young! Enough of my waffling and back to the last night. As normal, 5pm sound check with the extra run through of three vocal numbers with our old lead singer.

Once through! Easy - the man's a total professional. Before the show, a press conference and presentation of three gold discs for our album "Life Story". Plus TV interviews and loads of friends wanting to say hello. All good stuff but in a short while we would be on stage for the final gig.

The Palladium holds many memories for me. Concerts, seasons and three pantomimes, which we wrote the scores for. They were more like musicals: big budgets, big sets and big stars. They where all produced by Albert J. Knight. One of my guests this evening was Paul Knight, a great producer that I have had the privilege of working with for many years on such TV programmes as 'Pulaski', 'London’s Burning', 'The Knock' and 'Murder in Mind'. He is of course Albert’s son and has become a good friend. My children used to come for tea every Saturday between the matinée and the evening show.

As we had a rota of dressing rooms throughout this tour, it was my good fortune to have the number one room on the last night. Bruce reminded me that it was here that he knocked on the door to meet the great Judy Garland. She simply told him to "Go Away" (and I cleaned that up!). So here I was in the number one dressing room with its thousands of stories. It was in this room in 1962 I met a young songwriter and his wife: Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson. So many memories, I should write a book.

"30 minutes gentlemen" came the call from Roger Searle, our tour manager. The theatre was full of friends, family and fellow musicians who all wanted to see the last show.

Earlier in the week, when we knew Cliff wanted to sing with us, it was suggested he did it at the end of the show as it would be a hard act to follow. I said he should come on when we did our Cliff medley of songs we wrote for him. Someone said you can’t follow that with a drum solo. "Watch Me", I said and it worked. Brian May was at the side of stage for the second time, Pete Townshend was in the room and Cilla Black was dancing in the royal box.

So, with all that going on, we did our last show - just another show? I think not. Lionel had added OBE to my walk-on mark. So, on I walked with a big grin. The party after was a blur, not because of too much champagne but because of so many great friends wanting to share the last night with us. Our fabulous crew was stripping down the stage as normal so no time to hang out with them. I found out they had a lottery each night on how long the drum solo would be. Big money was involved and, on the last night, a roll over of £70 passed hands in 10 minutes and 50 seconds precisely. When I have slept and got over this night, I will write a few more lines to wrap this diary up. Bruce and I have a SODS (Society Of Distinguished Songwriters) meeting next week and Hank is going to Paris for a Django Reinhardt festival. We will have lunch the following week, before he returns to Perth. Maybe we will consider saying goodbye to Europe and Oz, who knows.

We have been invited to receive an award at the 'Mojo' lunch next week. We also have to look at the Cardiff film to make sure we are all happy with our performances. Let me thank you all for your letters, they are very much appreciated and, without naming names, a special thanks to all you special friends who have followed my career and have supported me for over 45 years, I luv ya. More next week after our lunch. TTFN.

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