Dateline 1985. "We should do a carol concert in the Playhouse", I barked half-jokingly at Eric Lister in the Grapevine. "Oh and by the way", I added as an afterthought, "if you don't let me direct it I'll burn the theatre down."

Two weeks later came the astonishing answer: "Yes!" Oops.

Anyway, using contacts from a previous incarnation plus some Questors Members, I got a group going. But: "O dear, will anyone come? I know, I'll get some Big Names! That'll pull 'em in." So I talked half a dozen of our best-known actors into doing short "turns", to break the music up.

It worked! Sell-out! Thus was born the Questors Choir which for 14 years until I retired (and indeed thereafter) did annual Playhouse carol concerts to this formula, producing some truly magic moments.

Two of the best were Coarse Carols which I commissioned from Mike Green and set to music: The Pigge's Ear, a low-budget carol for choirs which can't afford to do the Boar's Head Carol, and The Merry Sage and Onion, a genuinely meaningless carol to provide an alternative to The Holly and the Ivy which no-one understands the meaning of anyway.

Over those 14 years the Choir performed about 50 concerts, spreading The Questors' name abroad, providing singing - and acting - opportunities for nearly 300 people and raising thousands of pounds for charities including The Questors. The most successful was a concert for Centrepoint which raised over £3,000 in one evening.

Best of all: 5 years after I retired the Choir's still going strong, and probably better than when I ran it. I can't think of anything more special than to find that something you started continues with a life of its own after you stop, and The Questors, without whom the Choir would never have been born, should feel proud too. I hope it does. Especially as they come to celebrate their 20th anniversary next year (2005).

And the moral?

If you get an idea at The Questors, never be afraid to put it forward. But you'd better mean it. There's a deadly danger that you just might be told to do it!