I was panicking. I knew I was doing a phone interview with Syd Little, but the details were a bit vague. Was I ringing him or was he ringing me?

If I was phoning him, I'd lost the number. If I'd ever had it that was. Due to the delights of modern technology I had been sent an e-mail confirming the time, but had accidentally deleted it. Had it contained Syd's phone number or was I supposed to reply with mine for him?

Heaven above knew.

As I sat there inwardly panicking watching the clock tick past the appointed hour, the phone suddenly rang.

"Hello," said a cheery voice. "It's Syd Little here. I thought you were a bit late and as I'm going out, I thought I'd better ring you."

Mucho reliefo."Thanks a bunch, Syd," I replied. "Am I glad to hear you."

I attempted an explanation for the confusion, but gave up. "No worries, mate," the voice broke in. "Stay calm."

A few years ago, it wouldn't have been like that for Syd Little, the stick thin one in the comedy duo Little and Large, who were ever presents on Saturday night television in the 70s and 80s.

He had enough nervous energy to power the National Grid and while on stage it was all laughter and applause, off stage it was, as they say, another ball game altogether.

The mood swings of his chubby partner, hectic showbiz schedules and domestic tragedies, including the death of his drug addict son Paul, eventually took their toll and down he went with a heart attack.

"It was a very weird sensation," he said with some degree of understatement. "I really thought I was dead and on my way to the great beyond."

But God decided he wasn't yet ready for Syd and back on Earth he began to take seriously some lessons he had learned at the height of his fame.

"I remembered working with Cliff Richard at The Palladium in the late 70s and was impressed by his Christian outlook on life. He didn't force it on you, but he came over as so cool and in command of his life.

"We worked a lot with Roy Castle too and he was another devout Christian. He was always very warm and calm. Never became stressed out.

"Their religion seemed to give them an inner strength. An ability to cope no matter what life threw at them. Look at all the work Roy did when he knew he was dying with cancer. He had real strength to do that."

Taking inspiration from people like Cliff and Roy, Syd too has become a keen Christian.

"Not a Bible-bashing, gospel singing type," he explained. "I couldn't do that. I just like sharing with people how Christianity has helped me.

"It has made me a much calmer and more together person.

"Just one example. A few weeks ago I was coming home from Corfu when there was an announcement at the airport that the plane had been delayed for several hours.

"People began running around like headless chickens. I just sat there and read a book. After all, there was nothing I could do and getting stressed out about it would just make it worse.

"A few years ago, I would have been one of those headless chickens, but now I appreciate that getting stressed does yourself more harm and doesn't help anyone."

Syd will be explaining his new outlook on life and going through tales from his showbiz career during An Evening with Syd Little at Grace Church in Holme Lacy Road, Hereford, on Wednesday, November 24 at 7.30pm.

Syd Little always seemed a most unlikely star - a junior clerk who suddenly found himself in front of an audience. But it will be fascinating to find out about the stories behind a face that - love him or hate him - was familiar to millions.

Thanks for buying the tickets. Now how about paying our bills, too?

One of the problems with arts venues is that they're always short of money. That's all arts venues, from the Royal Shakespeare Company to the Royal Opera, from the Birmingham Rep to Huntingdon Arts. (by the way, one of those is slightly smaller than the other three!).

The problem with arts venues is that they don't operate like commercial businesses - if they did, there wouldn't be any because they would all have closed down.

Venues always have a huge deficit between their production/running costs and their ticket sales, and whereas that would bankrupt normal businesses, arts venues struggle on because nobody wants them all to close down.

It is therefore a fact of life that arts venues spend a great deal of their time not being arty-farty, but being hard-nosed commercial operators trying to bring in money.

Huntingdon Arts sends out approximately 250 applications a year to arts trusts asking for money - it is a hugely time-consuming task, but brings in between £10,000 and £20,000 a year.

We spend a lot of time talking to local firms about them getting financially involved with the venues or the Festival. Mostly they don't, but sometimes they do.

The Friends of the Swan Theatre work tirelessly to raise money for us, and we also have a lot of fund-raising ourselves (we have a promises auction on Monday, November 29, at the Swan and it would be great to see you!).

The really difficult part of fund-raising is to bring in revenue as opposed to capital money. When people give money, they understandably often want to tie it into to something tangible like a piece of equipment. Nobody is keen to pay the electricity bill or wages, but that is always the pressing demand from our point of view.

So, dear reader, if there is anybody out there with loads of dosh who would like to help us pay the electricity bill, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Chris Jaeger is artistic director of Huntingdon Arts.