Zaffar Kunial: ‘Muhammad Ali gave me his autograph in Moseley – I kept it in my Parka’

The Birmingham-born poet recalls growing up near Tolkien’s woods, playing cricket at Edgbaston and listening to the Beatles on cassette

To get me into the mood to write this, I’m listening to “Mr Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra. On repeat. “Sun is shining in the sky / There ain’t a cloud in sight.”

I must associate that song with Moseley in Birmingham, perhaps because summers were so bright there. Or maybe it’s that Bev Bevan of ELO went to the same school as me. As did the comedian Jasper Carrott, the England cricketer Moeen Ali and former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg. “Running down the avenue / See how the sun shines brightly in the city / On the streets where once was pity.”