The people’s Prince: even as a teenager the musician charmed everyone he met

Many pop stars are easy to imagine as children, as it’s a profession that doesn’t really reward growing up. Elton John, for example, looks exactly like his naughty Viz character. Robbie Williams is forever the Year 5 cheeky charmer who the teacher can’t help but forgive.

But Prince? What on earth was Prince Rogers Nelson like as a child? You can just about imagine him marching in to the front room of his Minnesota home in purple pyjamas announcing: ‘Darling papa, please summon for me one each of every musical instrument ever invented. And also, nine ladies. No clothes.’ So the news that there was a cache of his own notes for a memoir found at Paisley Park after his heartbreakingly wasteful death aged 57 is exciting. Genuises rarely write autobiographies; they tend to be too busy describing gravity or painting new ways of looking at stars or writing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in half an hour and casually tossing it to somebody else.