WHENEVER you happen to find yourself in London’s Baker Street, you instinctively behave in two elementary ways concerning numbers.

First, you glance at the buildings, hoping to locate 221b where the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes ‘resided’. Having failed to solve that riddle, you then start singing Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street number. You just do.

The curious thing about that 1978 hit was that, despite its content, it always made you feel good. Whenever it was played on the radio it gave you pleasure. The sound of its sax solo was like a favourite old mate who never fitted in. The entire song stood out against the music of its time.

Now, Gerry Rafferty has died in Bournemouth hospital after his long battle against booze and you start to listen to the song with fresh ears.

You realise once again how sad the lyrics of the opening verse actually are. They are about drinking the night away, forgetting about everything and how “you’re crying now”.

Gerry Rafferty kept a low profile in Poole where he shared a home with his fiancee. I never had the privilege of meeting him but suspect he would have seen me as one of the clowns to the left of him and jokers to the right who featured in his other fine number, Stuck in the Middle with You. But for all his alcohol troubles, he was a man whose legacy is that he enriched the lives of millions and influenced an army of songwriters. Baker Street was a hell of a song that ended poignantly: “When you wake up it’s a new morning, the sun is shining, it’s a new morning, but you’re going, you’re going home.”

Like his haunting song, Gerry Rafferty’s rolled on… but he left a lot of sunshine in his wake.