Fifteen years ago I ventured out of the Essex badlands to settle in Surrey and began working at Threshold. During my first week there a lady enquired about some wonderfully obscure CDs on behalf of her husband, duly identified and ordered in. Her next visit to the store saw such effusive praise and thanks for tracking them down you'd have thought I'd given her the winning Lotto numbers! I didn't know it at the time but this was Sheila Dudgeon, and her husband was the renowned record producer Gus Dudgeon. The tragic news of their deaths in a car accident in July has stunned and saddened all who knew them.

Married for 36 years and resident in Cobham for the last 25, Gus had first met Sheila in the sixties when they both worked at Decca Records. He'd started as a tea boy and before long his talent propelled him right up to Studio Engineer. By the late sixties the highflying Gus had become a fully-fledged Record Producer and was teamed with (the then unknown) Elton John. He went on to produce 17 albums with Elton including all the ones I grew up listening to and loving to bits - Tumbleweed Connection; Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player; Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy and many more.)

Sometimes flamboyant, with a seriously natty line in waistcoats, Gus was far from your usual 'Music Biz' stereotype. He was first and foremost a fan and possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of music. Start him talking and he could enthuse for hours. Needless to say we got on famously and it wasn't long before I began seeing the Dudgeons outside working hours. Sheila was a superb cook, and a hostess par excellence; everything always arranged and organized with meticulous care and attention to detail. Brazilian by birth, she spoke better English than almost anyone I'd met in Essex! There was, however, the odd olloquialism that she never quite mastered. In a brilliant eulogy, Paul Gambaccini related how, on discovering one of Cobham's stores shut during normal opening hours, Sheila was heard to proclaim, "This shop is as closed as a newt!".

Her forthright and oft-expressed opinions on the English weather are, unfortunately, quite unprintable here. She much preferred the Barbadian sun and would return from holidays there bearing huge piles of Carnival CDs and brimming with enthusiasm for certain tracks that she insisted I check out. The day before the recent England/Brazil World Cup game Sheila came into the shop to make sure I'd be watching the match. Gus had no interest in football but she was passionate about most things Brazilian. The following day saw her up at the ungodly hour of 7 am cheering her team on. Convinced England were sure to triumph, I warned Sheila to prepare herself for a big disappointment. The next morning, shortly after the final whistle signalled a comprehensive and thoroughly deserved Brazilian victory, my phone rang. On answering, all I heard was Sheila's unmistakable laugh as it echoed down the line. Brazil, of course, went on to win the cup and Sheila was absolutely delighted.

They were great company and it would usually be the wee small hours (and occasionally daybreak!) before I managed to wend my way home from a visit to Mole Cottage. One night we came across an old black and white photo, taken in a recording studio sometime in the mid sixties. It showed a smiling Muddy Waters with his arm around Gus! The other three people in the picture were Little Willie John, Sonny Terry & Brownie Mcghee! For a Blues and Soul fan like me this was infinitely more impressive than had it been Mick Jagger or Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. On another occasion I noticed a photo on a shelf that showed Sheila in relaxed and cordial conversation with someone rather familiar. "Surely not" I thought and looked closer to try and make out the faded signature. It read "To Sheila, with love, John Lennon." Lennon's final live performance had been with Elton John at Madison Square Garden and Gus had been producer on the resulting record.

It was an absolute pleasure to walk around their home, the walls resplendent with film and music memorabilia. Somehow, like the Tardis, Mole Cottage is much larger once you're inside! No matter where you happened to cast an eye there was always something to marvel at. They took great pride in the beautiful garden and in particular their spectacular fishpond. Gus could even name each fishindividually.

The day before the accident he'd visited the store, his usual ebullient self. Always madly busy with several different projects, he still found time to go to as many as three live gigs each week. Recently he'd even started managing a young band (Slinky Malinky) and was steadily working his way through an enormous pile of new CDs that, curiously, always seemed to be growing larger! There really didn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done…

Elton spoke movingly to a packed St Andrew's Church of just how much Gus & Sheila meant to him. He'd recently asked Gus to be the musical director for a forthcoming charity concert at the Royal Opera House and stated that this show would now be dedicated in Gus's memory. The wake at he Cobham Hilton was so perfectly organised you'd almost swear Sheila had arranged it all personally. A month on, I still can't believe I'm writing these words about Sheila and Gus. Top Bird and Diamond Geezer, as we'd say in Essex.

Sheila - Sorry I never actually made it to Cropredy with you both but thanks for your annual invitation. Gus - The shop's stock-take, which prevented me going to Austin's SXSW Festival with you, now seems of no importance whatsoever. Thank you both for your kindness and friendship. I'll let the final words be Gus's own. They are taken from a letter of condolence that he wrote to the widow of a music business colleague…"I naively assumed that all the musicians, friends and contemporaries that I grew up with, would just go sailing on well into comfortable old age and then we could all sit around and have a bloody good laugh at the whole thing…"