It is not often that a little old man is nearly killed by a journalist in the course of an interview. The man is 82, a Scottish artist of distinctly mixed media. He gets up from his armchair to get something to show the newspaper man.
In the process, he trips over the reporter's duffle bag and ends up sprawled on the floor.
Ivor Cutler survived the dangerous slapstick of that meeting with a Guardian writer last year, only to die at the start of March. An odd dealer in spoken words and strange songs, Cutler told tales of childhood seeped in weary wonder and technicolour drabness.
Born in Glasgow in 1923, he was present at key moments in cultural history. Here he is in the 1960s, a teacher at AS Neill's experimental school, Summerhill, where students were free to come and go; here he is in a Beatles film and on the cover of the Sergeant Pepper album as well.
His earliest EP was released in 1959, and his best-known albums, Dandruff and Velvet Donkey, appeared in 1974 and 1975. But within my sentient lifespan, he turned up on BBC radio where his wailing harmonium mimicked music and his tales of stern humour imitated tough sentimentality, strange fiction and surreal autobiography.
His yarns and songs dripped sepia: their focus was the past slowed down. With themes of austerity and shortage, his ration book of Scottish yarns could be descriptions of rural Ireland between the wars, albeit cranked up into lampoon.
Cutler's work is full of fragments and ambitious banalities that end up as punchlines. One of my favourite pieces is a short tale about a man who shares a room with a friend "who dabbled in semantics for a hobby". Another one mentions an old woman who picks up a stone on a beach and throws it into the sea but misses. Yet another asks a question: what happens to sharks when they are old? Some pieces were sea shanties, built around melodies you felt he had pilfered from traditional airs. Others were just words playing on narrative forms at once childish and terribly wise.
A wolf in stylish sheep's clothing, Cutler was both subversive and anarchic. His death was marked by glowing obituaries in the British press - fans had found their way into the media and, in positions of editorial power, they acknowledged this cult hero with full ceremonial burial. For you had to seek Cutler far beyond Dolphin or Golden Discs. His Tales From A Scotch Sitting Room, Vol. 2, Episode 17 and the ilk were more than likely to have been brought to you by the late John Peel, amid whose punk-inspired playlist throughout the 1980s and 1990s Cutler provided an oddball baritone delivery of strange wit.
Back in 1987, I had the great fortune to see Cutler performing in Leyton Townhall Library. Having recently read Donal Spoto's hatchet-job on Alfred Hitchcock (Dark Side of Genius), I was knew that the cinematic master of suspense and his sister had perused these same bookshelves in their youth.
Cutler was on tour to promote his book of poems, Fremsley - though "on tour" are words that cannot really describe the perambulations of that gentile and elderly gent. He apparently insisted on being called "Mr Cutler", but his polite and formal manners were riddled with mischief and glee.
On that summer evening in the library, a mixture of Irish wastrels, teachers bored by Wimbledon and South Bank season-ticket holders gathered in the foyer. Some queued to purchase Ivor's autographed book, others sipped wine. With a wooden floor, long windows and a stage, the venue looked like a school hall. Plastic seats were arranged as though for an annual display of gangly students' lack of talent and their hammy stabs at Julius Caesar. At 8pm, the show began.
A sixty-something Cutler took the stage. He walked slowly to his harmonium; its upright shape gave it the air of a pulpit. He started by introducing himself. "Good evening. I am Ivor. Ivor Cutler. I am here to tell you some stories about my world." His Scottish accent burred and brayed and his deadpan delivery of what may or may not have been jokes set the tone for the following 90 minutes.
That night, his finest moment came six or seven minutes later. The door opened to admit three late arrivals - a dowdy man and two unfashionable women - inducing some of the audience to turn around in the direction of the footsteps. On stage, Ivor went silent. Then he spoke up. "Good evening, you three." Embarrassed, they scanned the room for three empty places. From on high, Ivor identified their problem.
"Not to worry," he said, indicating the crammed front row. "Do come up here to the front - there are plenty of seats."
Nervous and apologetic, his victims advanced to claim said seats, only to realise they had been duped by a cruel piece of stagecraft. And we all roared sadistically at their folly.