I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.

He decided to leave school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. He returned to England and began to write a book about the experience.

In March 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a "Son of the Godhead" – a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood – and the following month told the BBC's Wogan that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas and in four books publiDavid Icked over seven years – The Robots' Rebellion (1994) And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995) The Biggest Secret (1999) and Children of the Matrix (2001) – set out a moral and political worldview that combined New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of totalitarian trends in the modern world. Bush Queen Elizabeth II Kris Kristofferson and Boxcar Willie.