Veteran poet, writer and broadcaster Roger McGough is careful to remain a observer of everyday life, finds Katherine MacAlister Roger McGough - poet extraordinaire, 70s icon, mixer of the stars and now autobiographer - is probably one of the most humble men on earth.

Yes, he may have been there and done that, jammed with Hendrix, worked with the Beatles, rocked with Bob Dylan and hung out with Brian Epstein.

But he never got dragged into the whole way of life, preferring to have his face pressed up against the window instead, observing and staying true to himself as a writer and poet.

But you can read all this for yourself in Roger's new autobiography Said and Done or get down to the Playhouse, where he will be wearing both his poet and autobiographer hats next Friday.

The autobiography is a departure for Roger, who shot to stardom in the late 1960s with songs including Lily the Pink and Thank U Very Much.

But after publishing his Collected Poems, he was all poemed-out and needed to do something else, hence his recollections of that magical time when he was partying with today's icons.

Roger, 66, had been teaching at a Kirby comprehensive when The Scaffold, which included John Gorman and Mike McCartney, brother of Paul, made it big.

As well as working with George Martin and co-writing The Yellow Submarine film script for the Beatles, Roger encountered Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marlon Brando, Allen Ginsberg and Pete McCarthy among others.

So did he have an inkling then of just how big his friends would become? "No, thankfully, or it might have been quite different," he says. "I was just in the right place at the right time.

"When we were shooting The Yellow Submarine the producers wanted to get it done as soon as possible, in case people forgot who the Beatles were by the time it came out. So no, I had no idea what part they would play in history.

"But I always knew my place. If you're in a recording studio with Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan, they have their own language when they sit down at a piano. So I became very good at melting into the foreground.

"But all through those years I always had confidence in myself as a writer and poet, and that's what kept me going."

So how come he's happy getting up on stage year after year?

"It's a strange thing. I think it's like going to school. You suddenly turn around and realise it's not that bad, and you are actually quite enjoying yourself.

"But I think it's also a lot to do with my background. We were brought up not to call attention to ourselves, so I just get on with it."

Just getting on with it includes being consistently one of the most successful English poets for more than 30 years in both adult and children's fiction.

Add an OBE and MBE to the list, a couple of Baftas and every literary prize under the sun and you'll be getting warmer.

But Roger admits that writing Said and Done was one of the hardest things he's done. "I have always found writing poetry easier than prose, and I had to be quite truthful here, because of course there were other people involved.

"So I started off with a memory of Salman Rushdie and it went from there really. It's episodic. I also had two main criteria for the book; to make it interesting and to understand that what is interesting to me may not be interesting to the reader.

And then he smiles and adds: "Had I been a good singer it would have been a very different career."

Said and Done comes to the Oxford Playhouse next Friday. The box office is on 01865 305305.