This week, with SIMON DANCZUK, managing director of Vision 21and Blackburn with Darwen councillor

MEMORY: Aged three or four, sitting outside my home in a highchair with a toy toffee shop trying to sell sweets to neighbours.

KISS: When I was four I was made to play spin the bottle at a party and had to be kissed by an older girl, which made me cry for hours.

LOVE: While training to become a black belt in Ju-Jitsu, around my 15th birthday, I started going out with another student called Melanie. We also shared an interest in the novelist George Orwell.

DRINK: In my final year at secondary school I attended the school disco, having drunk half a bottle of Bacardi. The head teacher sent me home after catching me being sick in the toilets. I haven't touched the stuff since.

HERO: Coun Peter Greenwood was the first leader I met who had real vision, a sense of purpose and exceptionally strong principles.

HOUSE: At about 17 I moved into a flat above a southern fried chicken shop in Padiham with my mate but things turned sour when I dated an ex-girlfriend of his. JOB: After leaving secondary school with no real qualifications I went to work at Main Gas in Padiham making gas fires on an assembly line.

EMBARRASSMENT: I had a fairly poor upbringing and early in my junior school life the elastic snapped on my underpants and they dropped down below my shorts.

HOLIDAY: I don't think I really went on holiday until I was about nine and it was probably to either Southport or Morecambe.

BUSINESS IDEA: Vision 21 is it. I had the idea in the bath one night, discussed it for weeks with my partner, then suggested it to some exceptionally sharp friends, and it went from there.

CONFERENCE: I'm a bit of a conference junkie but my first real one was when Rossendale and Darwen Labour Party sent me to Brighton about eight years ago as a delegate to Labour's annual conference. I seconded a resolution following the late Audrey Wise MP tying a future Labour Government to introducing a minimum wage. I went on to lose my spectacles very late one evening/morning after relaxing a bit.