I discovered Derby Sketching Club around 2011; I have a fine art degree but Trent Poly in the 1980s didn’t offer any sensible guidance to those, like me, not mature enough to have a clear idea of what they wanted to do. I drew in sketchbooks out of college time, but didn’t show them to anyone. I still feel slightly dizzy when I think of the three years I could have spent in the life room.

On leaving I stole an easel which I still use, and a friend and I found a largely empty textiles building, Oldknows Factory in Nottingham, and set up Oldknows Studio Group (£5 a week rent each) and gallery. The upper floors of the building became a complex of cheap studio spaces and a community of artists, through which hundreds of people have moved over the years.

Around 2000 my wife and I started our educational software business (www.busythings.co.uk) and it wasn’t until around 2010 that I felt the urge to start drawing again, triggered by being given an iPod Touch, a magical device, and I found Derby Sketching Club not long after.

My only advice to anyone who wants to learn to draw is to do it as much as you can, and from life, and this is more or less what I try to do myself: Derby Sketching Club’s various sessions have been hugely helpful to me, and so my second piece of advice is to join Derby Sketching Club.