People who have influenced me

I am conscious of the fact that a number of people have said or done things throughout my life which have influenced me profoundly. Most if not all of them have no idea how profound their influence was, and I have never thanked any of them. Sadly, some of them are already dead, so my thanks will come too late. However, I want to set the record right and share with my readers the insights I was given. I originally intended to post these anecdotes in more or less chronological order but my memory is not as well organised as I had imagined.

I shall be pleased to have feedback from anyone and, if any of my readers knows the whereabouts of anyone I feature, please let me know.