Even though their songs weren’t overtly political, you felt as though you were part of a movement But I have no desire to analyse their lyrics. Thank God, I will be in Mauritania next week and nowhere near the symposium in Manchester.Dr Sean Campbell, Lecturer in cultural studies at Anglia Polytechnic University and co-organiser of the symposium on The Smiths I got into The Smiths in August 1984, when I saw them playing “William, It Was Really Nothing” on Top of the Pops I was 13 Even today, I often play their songs on my guitar. Like my colleagues who study James Joyce or Shakespeare, I am also a fan of the subject I study. The sound of The Smiths is very much in the air at the moment. If you listen to bands like Franz Ferdinand or Keane, you can hear their influence. The Smiths represented the outsider and offered an alternative voice that countered the crass materialism and right-wing politics of the Thatcher decade. They also conveyed humour, warmth, and intelligence at a time when all those things were unfashionable (at least in pop culture).

I think they are the most important British band of the past 20 years. Morrissey called for both the Queen and Margaret Thatcher to be removed. It’s difficult to imagine Keane or Coldplay calling for such a thing.Will Self, Novelist”Does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind? I don’t know,” is what Stephen Patrick Morrissey sang, thus encapsulating over 3,000 years of the Western philosophic tradition in a neat couplet. The Smiths brought to its zenith that tendency in English popular music which was more closely allied to the performative aspects of music hall than the beat-based hit factories of the US scene. Poseur, intellectual, English dilettante, Morrissey went on to have a distinguished solo career, but The Smiths were so very good because they counter-balanced his more pretentious flights of fancy with an almost pure expression of the four-piece rock band.Michael Winner, Film directorI don’t know who they are, dear..

First holiday memory?

First holiday memory?
With my family when I was around five years old on our way to the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. It was so different to what we were used to, because there was fog and mist, which we thought was very romantic. The holiday began as soon as we stepped on to the overnight train. My mother always packed tiffin-carriers full of food for the journey. The servants, who travelled with us, had laid out all the bedding. I remember sitting on the soft quilts and digging into the koftas (meatballs), potatoes with cumin and mango pickles, using the lovely fluffy pooris (bread) as plates.Best holiday?Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts with all my children and grandchildren. We rent a six-bedroom house right on the beach every year, which is just perfect.

They are the best holidays because they have all the ingredients that are important to me – my family, the water and wonderful fresh food from farms and the sea – the whole family cooks and eats together.Favourite place in the British Isles?The Lake District My sister has a house there. I love the endless moors with the grazing sheep and the unsteady skies.What have you learnt from your travels?Travelling reveals the real world, not the one you read about. The brain and every sense goes into high gear when you are faced with the unfamiliar. I remember a volcano blowing up when we were on the tiny island of Ternate in Indonesia. The Sultan of Ternate went into the crater to ask his buried ancestors what had caused this imbalance in nature.