Although a fan of the output of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson, I’ll never forgive them for introducing the UK public, in September 1968, to my Doppelgänger, Joe 90.

This was the month (and year) I started secondary school at Bec Grammar in Tooting; it was not the thing to have such a lookey-likey.

Being in the first-year was tough enough with the older boys insistent on demonstrating the inner workings of the school toilet system or nicking your tuck shop-bought iced bun, without looking horribly like the latest ITV puppet incarnation.

Both Joe 90 and I had blond hair and glasses (although I didn’t work for the Secret Service), however, the difference being Joe’s glasses could make him speak Russian fluently, whereas mine couldn’t even help me conjugate the simplest of Latin verbs!

I think it’s usually a term of endearment, being given a nickname at school, and Joe 90 stuck for several terms; I would have preferred to have looked more like Captain Black, Troy Tempest or even The Hood.

I guess, given it was an all-boys school, it could have been worse: I could have had a passing resemblance to Lady Penelope.

“Home, Parker?”

“Sorry, m’lady, I have a PE lesson!”