I tried to get in touch with an old friend recently. I sent two or three emails over a period of a month, without reply. I interspersed these attempts with the occasional phone call to mobile and home phone but had to leave messages on each occasion.

He had been spotted at his old haunts so clearly the elusive one was not on holiday or consumed by too much freelance work in his retirement. I don’t know if others go through the same thought-processes but I began to question whether it was my fault. Had I done something, said something; or not done or said something?

I emailed and phoned again within an hour and was pleased that finally, like Lazarus, my friend was raised from the dead.

Yes he had received my messages and messages from others. So why haven’t you replied, I asked?

In a nutshell he could not be bothered. He had distanced himself from the world in general because he was depressed. He did not see the advantage in making the effort to pick up the phone or email.

He was suffering from an acute case of what I dub ‘yesterday’s-man-syndrome’.

A succession of events, none of them terminal or that serious in themselves, had piled up and in doing so, forced him into depressive introspection. His children had long fled the roost; had children of their own and they in turn had reached that stage where Grandad and Grandma remain fondly pleasant but no longer main attractions in their increasingly widening horizons.

He liked the term “yesterday’s-man-syndrome”. It summed it up nicely for him but, just as when you receive a diagnosis from the doctor, you do not sit back and think that’s a relief and are immediately cured. You have to come to terms with tackling it; otherwise you are going to vegetate all the way to the graveyard.

“Well it won’t be long and I’ll be there anyway,” some may retort when in that sort of mood, which is a clear indication that the syndrome is deep-rooted.

Moving to France in 2005 brought fresh stimulation for me and very soon I was involved in landscaping my Folly. Physically it occupied me for some eight years, in between holidays, which I could never have afforded had I stayed in England. Then, just as that was beginning to pale and my grand design was completed, Ellie thought it best we move and we headed down here to The Tarn.

I had the Watford in the 20th Century books to write and update with further research, and I had a new garden to put my stamp on. Then the three books were finished and the garden neared completion, I began to fret as to how to fill the voids. So I decided to write a book, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. Someone told me that if you write a book, it is good to have a second nearing completion so that you can cash in quickly. So I wrote a sequel but, when I looked up publishing on the Internet, I discovered that 75,000 words is the optimum. Of course Harold Robbins, Alexander Dumas, James Clavell, and others of that ilk, have written far bigger books but they were published successes.

So I decided to push those considerations aside. I was enjoying the journey rather than the thought of arrival at a publishers. I was writing the book for me. I wrote the sequel and then wrote a third book, which is nearer the required length.

I came back from our holiday in SW Herts over Christmas and decided to go through the books. I spent some very intensive hours while it rained outside and I was so wrapped up in it, even when the sun came out, I was still working hard in my study. Eventually the realisation struck me. My first book and the serial were not worth publishing. I had written the diary of an ordinary man and the events were duly recorded as ordinary. It lacked pace and surprise. It needed a rethink.

The third book has possibilities but the realisation I had written some 350,000 words and lost my way was somewhat depressing. Then came the news that a friend has cancer and that another has yesterday’s-man-syndrome. That and all the news in the papers did not help; plus the fact all the garden is out of sync. What will bloom in the summer when it is blooming now?

Before long I was plunged into the syndrome myself: lacking in enthusiasm for anything. In such a state you can convince yourself of the unlikely; such as I began to think I had gone off rioja. I mean, how depressed could I get?

Years ago, music was very uplifting: my drug of choice. I was a music junkie, but I have been finding fewer and fewer modern albums etc, which actually float my boat, compared with the songs from yesteryear.

The other morning, lying in bed with a cup of tea, I was in no hurry to rise and face the day. I happened upon a Rolling Stone magazine link and suddenly my eyes alighted on a name of a singer whose records I have collected and often loved through the majority of my life since I first heard Dion and the Belmonts launch into I Wonder Why (revived by Showaddywaddy 20 years later). I had followed him through Runaround Sue, The Wanderer (later revived by Status Quo) and the numerous Stateside hits he enjoyed, which failed to register in the UK. He became a singer-songwriter, sold a million with Abraham, Martin and John (later a hit for Marvin Gaye) and I followed him through the 70s and into the 80s when he became a born-again Christian, having long overcome heroin addiction. He made albums, picked up some Grammy Award nominations and was feted by Dylan, Springsteen, Van Morrison and Lou Reed – the latter nominating him to the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

Last week, lying in bed, I found a link to Dion’s latest single, which he had written and had another old favourite, Paul Simon, joining him on the song - New York Is My Home. I heard the voice that had sung all but 17 years of my life away and realised he is 76 and making records, with another new album out next month. Clearly he is nudging arse if not kicking it, as the saying goes. I played their venture through several times and realised he is not admitting to being yesterday’s man. Today is still relevant to him and being two years younger I have no excuse. The man who once sung the line “I used to be a Brooklyn Dodger but I aint a hitter anymore” had long stopped worrying about the fact and got on with life. His voice sounds amazingly close to the one who sang Teenager in Lover.

My wife smiled as I played the track again. “Mind you, he has not had to change. He is a singer and has been a recording artist for 59 years. He has not had to re-invent himself.”

She had a point although overcoming the British invasion in 1964 was a tough one. Either way, a voice and a song had nudged me out of a depression.