New Star Wars film will take me back to playing Luke Skywalker | Simon Carter

They are brandishing rulers and making ‘swoosh’ noises, while one of them attempts to look menacing by walking slowly around the playground – in among those kids who inexplicably preferred kiss chase to destroying the evil Empire – and muttering ‘I find your lack of faith disturbing’.

OK, it was my school playground, the galaxy wasn’t that far away – I lived in east Devon - and the rulers were our makeshift light sabres. My ‘menacing’ mate was mimicking Darth Vader, and in truth sounded and looked ridiculous.

We all looked ridiculous. It was a school playground, after all.

It was a ‘long time ago’, though; the last few months of 1977. Forty-two years ago. The sands of time seem to run that little bit quicker the older you get.

Armed with my bendy plastic ruler, I was Luke Skywalker. The cool kids always wanted to be Han Solo. There was no political correctness in school playgrounds in the late 1970s, so the smallest kid was told he had to be a Jawa. If memory serves me right, Jeff complained to our teacher about it. We got our own back, though – we shoved him down the Death Star rubbish shute.

My mate Scott did a fairly good version of C3PO long before a similar ‘robot’ dance turned Peter Crouch into a household name.

All these years on, Star Wars remains my favourite film of all time. I’m not a film buff – I’ve never seen Dirty Dancing, Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List or The Shawshank Redemption.

I have, though, seen the first Star Wars movie more than 30 times and I’ve seen the seven other films the franchise has released since Alderaan was obliterated.

That is why I am as excited about seeing the new Rise of Skywalker production as I was when I ‘swooshed’ my way around the playground.

For a few hours, it will be 1977 again. I will be eight again. And if I close my eyes, I will see Jeff screaming ‘sir, sir, now they want me to be R2D2...’

Universal suffrage crusaders must be spinning down below

As part of my A-level Sociology syllabus, I studied psephology - the study of voting behaviour with regards to Thatcher’s first election win in 1979.

It was really fascinating to see why so many traditional Labour supporters turned blue. Seriously, it was.

Four decades on, I can also see why so many people are sick to death of politics and politicians.

Perhaps that’s why the turnout last Thursday was, nationally, down at 67.3 per cent. Sad, really, why more than three in 10 of the electorate couldn’t be bothered to vote.

That noise you can hear is Emily Davison rotating furiously in her grave. And if you don’t know who she is, shame on you...​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Loony moggie should have been installed in number 10

Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, I fondly recall the candidates fielded in general elections by the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Much of the party’s publicity centred around founder member Screaming Lord Sutch, and since his death in 1999 elections have never been quite the same. The Loonies are still going and fielded 24 candidates in the UK last Thursday.

Since 1999 they have been led by Alan ‘Howling Laud’ Hope. His cat, Catmandu, was the party’s joint-leader until his death in a road crash three years later. How brilliant it would have been, how quintessentially British, to have seen Catmandu installed as the No 10 mouser, rather than Larry.