"Raymond Banning is a very special and distinguished pianist whose values in his very fine playing reflect the best qualities of the Golden Era of pianism."

I had a great feel for music from a very young age. As a result, my aunts bought me an upright piano and sent me for tuition with a local piano teacher who gave me a good grounding. At the age of ten my aunts recruited me to play for their dancing school. Although I found that boring at times, it developed my sight-reading skills enormously.

My family were not musicians but they all loved music. My father used to take me to concerts of the LPO and Hallé when they performed in Margate, where I saw conductors such as Adrian Boult and John Barbirolli.

My mother, aunt and grandmother were professional dancers. While my grandmother was dancing at Drury Lane Theatre she befriended a young acrobat who told her he would go to America to make his fortune. His name was Archie Leach. He did then go off to the USA, where he became Cary Grant! I share the family's love of dance especially within musicals such as West Side Story. I served on the board of directors of a Pan-African dance company for a year.

My junior school took music very seriously and we were given excellent lessons in singing and classical music. One teacher ran after-school music appreciation classes in which we listened to classical music and her commentaries about the composers and pieces. Ordinary working class primary school kids turned up voluntarily to be introduced to a wide range of classical music.

I took up the cello at my secondary school and played it in the school orchestra. I also won a prize for composition.

Although I grew up on a council estate, many of my neighbours had a great love for music. Many of them were coalminers who had moved to Kent from Wales. They were always supportive, and proud when I won prizes in festivals or competitions. It concerns me greatly that these days there seems to be fewer opportunities for youngsters from a similar background to be introduced to classical music. That is ironic since many of the great composers came from humble origins.

Yes, it did, but I felt a fish out of water at first, amongst so many very confident, middle-class youngsters. However, life was transformed when I joined the college football team. I had been an enthusiastic Sunday League footballer, so I impressed them and was immediately put in the team, scoring the only goal in our first match. That is how I made my first friends.

My secondary school musical education had not been very full so I was fascinated to learn all I could about musical history, analysis, theory, etc. I don't think I every missed a single class or lecture in my three years there.

Perhaps the figure who most stands out for me was Vernon "Tod" Handley. My revelation was Tod's utterly inspirational - and hilarious - conducting of the college choir. Our first piece was Bach's B Minor Mass. I had never heard it before, but when the stick came down for the first chord, I was riveted. I know it is fashionable these days to perform Bach's choral works with much smaller forces, but the impact of that glorious music, sung by well over a hundred young voices, will stay with me forever. It inspired me so much that I formed and conducted my own choir a year later.

I listened to many pianists, but the real "Road to Damascus" moment occurred when I went to hear Claudio Arrau for the first time. It was a revelation! I had never heard such beautiful sounds, yet achieved with complete ease and by using just natural body weight. I vowed from that day that I would re-examine my whole approach to my playing, questioning everything I had been taught. I gave myself two rules: play in the most natural and relaxed way possible, and to always attempt to create a warm sound. It took time, especially as it was some years before I could afford an instrument that would deliver what I wanted, but eventually my playing came to gain an infinitely more expressive quality, more truly representing what I felt inside.

I believe the piano should always be treated as a singing instrument. It is capable of a vast array of colour, and an infinite depth of tonal beauty.  I feel very passionately about the music I play, but even when the biggest fortissimo is called for, I like to keep the tone warm and rich, and never with a hard edge.

Yes and Yes. When I first began giving solo recitals I was beset by nervous tension and actually wondered whether I would ever have a career. But over the years this problem has diminished considerably. When I go out on to the concert platform my overwhelming feeling is to try and touch people emotionally. I have attended recitals by the likes of Arrau, Horowitz, Richter, Jorge Bolet and others. What made their playing great was not mere technical wizadry but the fact that we, the audience, were deeply moved or uplifted. That is my sole concern now when I perform, and the nerves have receded as a consequence.

I particularly enjoy giving workshops. The ones sponsored by The Oldie have proved enormously rewarding and I have met so many fascinating people. Where else would you find peers of the realm discussing their piano playing with manual workers? The piano is a great leveller and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that adults of any age can progress to an advanced level of piano playing. In fact, in the seven years of presenting courses for amateur pianists, it has become obvious to me that adults can play with a depth of feeling and sense of beauty that few young concert artists can attain.

Hundreds of people have attended my courses, yet there has hardly been one without something individual to express in music. I am not pretending that they all have flawless virtuoso technique, but it is so rewarding, and profoundly touching, to hear amateur pianists pour their whole life’s experience into their playing. And when you can show them ways to overcome difficulties and progress still further, they leave so uplifted and energised. I love that.

No. I have a wide repertoire and I love to put different composers together in a programme. It is like creating a good menu. You wouldn’t want to eat the same dish for each course. I take great care in formulating programmes which have a wide scope, yet retain a complementary thread to the pieces, and provide something to please every member of the audience.

Oh, absolutely. I have been fortunate to perform evenings of words and music with some wonderful actors, notably Edward Fox and Stephanie Cole. They are both instinctively musical, and I have learned so much from sharing the stage with them. I feel very honoured. I am still enormously stage-struck.

Yes first, there was a lady called Ann Worden whose values and instincts I greatly appreciated. She was a devotee of the Tobias Matthay school of playing and the first to impress on me the importance of relaxation and arm weight.

For some years, I conducted choirs and orchestras and I'll be eternally grateful for the generous guidance from Tod Handley. He was incredibly kind and inspirational, and also one of the funniest people I have ever met.

One of the most significant figures was the late John Bingham. Not just because he appointed me to the staff at Trinity College of Music, but because I learned so much from his experience and insight. He was a wonderful pianist and some of his recordings, especially the Schumann Fantasie, are matchless. He put the finishing touches to the principles I had discovered for myself. We shared a love for the values of the late Romantic pianists, and we became great pals - I spoke to him almost every day in his last year, and I miss him enormously.

Finally, I owe a lot to Richard Ingrams whom I started teaching some years ago. He has a profound love of music and has been a loyal friend. He has opened doors that would have been closed to me, as well as giving me the opportunity to write for The Oldie, which I thoroughly enjoy. I also enjoy his humorous outlook on life and the shows I do with him and Ian Hislop, another good friend, are enormous fun.

Not particulary. I have performed repertoire from Scarlatti through to Samuel Barber, as well as some contemporary composers, such as Rzewski. If pushed, I suppose my special favourites are Bach, Beeethoven, Debussy and Rachmaninoff.

For me JS Bach was a Romantic. He was a passionate, hedonistic man, and I believe those aspects of his music should go hand-in-hand with the transcendent. I have always felt that the spiritual and the earthy are complementary aspects of the human condition, and I become frustrated with performances of Bach which lack all the drama and passion. Just listen to the opening of the St Matthew Passion or B Minor Mass. They are hugely powerful musical and dramatic utterances.

For me, the modern concert grand is the ideal instrument for performing Bach’s keyboard music. I don’t believe the keyboard instruments of Bach's day did his music justice. It is interesting to read CPE Bach’s description of his father’s organ playing. He was always seeking out new colours and timbres, and loved pulling out all the stops to make a huge sound.

I love the sensuous - and dare I say, erotic - nature of Debussy's music - there is also such exquisite tenderness. With Rachmaninoff, I love the profoundly emotional and passionate depth. Also, with both of these composers I adore the ‘feel’ of their harmonies and melodic lines. They are so rewarding to play, yet they stretch the performer to the limits in their subtle tonal demands, requiring the utmost artistry in terms of legato and cantabile playing.

Art and theatre are very important to me. I was lucky enough to know some wonderful painters at the outset of their careers and was able to purchase paintings at a fraction of the price they would now command. I think very much in terms of colour when playing Debussy, for instance. I have a large collection of films on DVD and enjoy these a great deal. Humour is a great joy. I have gained great pleasure from the likes of Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Les Dawson and Ken Dodd.

Some sport, notably football and cricket, which I used to play with rather more enthusiasm than ability. I also have an interest in astronomy and cosmology and would like to study these more deeply.

I read voraciously: apart from composer biographies I enjoy classic fiction such as Dickens and Trollope, history, biography and good crime novels and thrillers: for instance Patricia Highsmith, Peter Robinson, Christopher Brookmyre. I have also enjoyed the increasing opportunities to travel I have had in recent years, both abroad and in England. I love this funny old country of ours, for all its faults, and Elgar is one of my absolutely favourite composers, who still moves me beyond words. I so wish he had written a great piano concerto or sonata.

To develop my performing opportunites. There is so much wonderful repertoire I want to play. I particularly enjoy giving concerto performances and hope that these will increase.