Reports of my own demise have been greatly exaggerated

After decades touring the globe as a stand-up comic and documentary maker, Sir Billy Connolly, now 80 and living with Parkinson's, reflects in a magical new memoir on the siren call of the road, his many exploits along the way... and why he's not ready for his final rest-stop yet

- Billy Connolly

WHEN I was a wee boy, I felt like an outsider. I didn't fit in anywhere. As a boy I could never follow the established rules and paths that could lead to the kind of success other boys achieved.

The one thing that made me feel less of an outsider was to be alone on the road. I'd leave the house and just start walking.

I realised that if I fitted in anywhere in the world, it was here, just rambling along to nowhere in particular.

I never worried about getting lost. Nobody's ever really lost. You just walk until you become unlost. When I was in my twenties, I thought it was possible that I could live off my wits and just when I needed to I could play music and tell stories - a bit like a medieval troubadour.

The call of the road was so strong in me that, even after I was married to my wife Pamela Stephenson, I once proposed I should become a full-time hobo. I'd stride out on to the open road and just turn up at home whenever I needed money.

I dearly wish that conversation had gone a bit better than it did. I think any man or woman who's got a faraway look in their eyes is a Rambling Man.

To be a Rambling Man, you don't have to live your life on the road. It's more a state of mind. An ideal.

THE feeling of being on a motorbike is second to none. I once had a great biker jacket made for a tour I did of New Zealand. The name of that tour, "Too Old To Die Young", was written on the back in Hells Angel-style typography and with a logo of a skull. A woman in Los Angeles created it for me. She told me she had to get permission from the Hells Angels team because they are quite particular about their style and trademarks.