If I said the path to doing ‘web stuff’ was laid before me from an early age, I’d be lying. If truth be told, I ‘fell into doing web stuff’ quite by chance and through friends opening doors.

But I can clearly remember moments when I got caught up in the wonder of ‘multimedia’, ‘new media’, ‘digital’ or plain simple ‘computer games’ and I knew it was something exciting, inviting but often frustratingly beyond my reach.

‘Interactive media’, in whatever guise it came in, always struck me as something magical and something that might change the world. And I suppose it has.

My first ever experience of ‘Interactive Media’ is shared, I am sure, with countless others of my generation - Manic Miner.

Manic Miner was the first computer game I ever owned and I adored it. Everything about it. From the bizarre creature on the front cover to the game play inside.

Before Manic Miner, I had to make do with Pac Man and Hunchback at those rare trips to the arcades or at motorway service stations. But here was a game that was in your front room, a game akin to those in the arcades. Strong, bold colours. Deceptively simple game play. Addictiveness. Screeching sound effects. Tinny monotone tunes.

In the school playground people used to boast about finishing all 20 levels but I don’t think anyone ever did - not that I knew anyway. I once heard that someone from Burnham-on-Sea had completed it but you heard a lot of things that were about a friend of a friend.

I only ever got to the 7th level before I progressed on to Jet Set Willy and other gems but I never forgot Manic Miner and I doubt I ever will.