I know I wasn’t the only one whose first reaction, on seeing what this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge was, thought something along the lines of ‘Nah, what’s that even about?’ In my case there may also have been an element of ‘WTF?’

And yet – also like others – when I thought about it a little, I understood what Egidio was getting at more fully and realised I could give it a go.

Okay, so it’s just a decent enough image of a rainbow, albeit an unusually close one, but it did trigger a musical memory.

Picture this: October 1970 and it’s the first day at university (in the south of England – more specifically, Canterbury) of a callow youth from northern England. After the welcome speech from the Master of the College, the new recruits mingled and formed small groups. I found myself, with about half a dozen others, none of whom had met before, in the college room of a fellow freshman..

Being English, they put the kettle on and made tea. It was my first experience of Earl Grey (callow and northern, remember). This album – ‘A Rainbow In Curved Air’, by Terry Riley – was playing gently in the background.

Heaven help us, that was over half a century ago, but I still listen to it often and the sight of a rainbow – any rainbow – takes me back to that quiet afternoon.

Try it for yourself, if you like…

Lens-Artists Challenge: Music To My Eyes