Ian McMillan: A PIN bursts my bubble on a day to forget

He was the first man on his street with a CD player, when the rest of us were still listening to vinyl.

He had a prototype mobile phone that looked like a cross between a walkie-talkie from a black-and-white war film and the kind of attach case that travelling salesman used to carry.

He got a computer that was the size of a wardrobe which whirred and hummed like a flying saucer and which I was convinced gave off potentially harmful rays.

And he was the first Yorkshireman I knew with a credit card.

He showed it to me once, in a caf, keeping it in his palm away from the gaze of our fellow tea-gluggers.

John explained that this Barclaycard would let him spend money he hadn't got. I was impressed: felt like a good idea to me, although both of us were pretty misty about how it actually worked.

He told me about the PIN number, a new and shiny concept in those days.

"How do you remember it?" I asked, knowing that he wasn't all that good at remembering.

He smiled conspiratorially and showed me the first page of his diary. He pointed to a note half-way down: Billiard Cue, followed by four numbers. He tapped the side of his nose.

"That's my PIN number. Billiard Cue: Barclaycard. If anybody stole my bag, they'd never guess."

Hmmm. Maybe.

The other day, though, I wished I'd got a bit of paper that said Billiard Cue, or Cloth Cap for Credit Card.

I put the card into a machine to buy a train ticket – and my mind went blank. I don't often experience mind-blankness and I have to tell you it was pretty scary. I metaphorically opened the drawer in which the number lived, and there was nothing there, not even lining paper or dust. It was like a Saturday night Lottery failure: no numbers.

The weird thing was, the numbers were there. I could hear the tune of them, I could see the shape of them, I could smell their tantalising aroma and feel their rough bark-like skin. I could almost, though not quite, say them. It was as though they were a shadowy figure that nipped around the corner just before you saw them properly.

I finally understood the heart-breaking nature of the phrase "on the tip of my tongue" because that's where the numbers were, right on the tip. And to be honest, that's a useless place to be.

The numbers might as well have been on the tip of Barra, one of the most remote islands of the Outer Hebrides, because I just couldn't bring them to mind.

I almost panicked. I'd read about these "senior moments" and here I was, having one. What I did remember was, the day before, doing that thing my mother used to do when she rattled through a list of children's names before she arrived at the right one.

As a lad, I used to feel that was a feeble thing to do, a sign of a mind not quite working properly. I'd look away, embarrassed, as she listed the names of my nieces and nephews and uncles and aunties and my brother before she got to me.

And yet, there I was, yesterday morning, doing the same thing, rattling through a cast-list to get to my eldest daughter, each name running into the next: Liz-Andrew-Thomas-David-Matthew…Kate!

Then, the same day, my wife caught me talking to myself in the kitchen.

Admittedly, all I said was "I'll get some change out of my pocket" but the only audience was the washing-up and some apple crumble in a bowl.

My wife looked at me strangely. I smiled.

"Just looking for some change!" I said, brightly.

"I know," she said. "I heard you telling yourself."

Things were starting to slip away; certain moorings were working themselves loose.

And now here I am, in front of the ticket machine. There's a tutting, watch-tapping queue behind me and the machine is asking me if

I want to carry on. I think I might be able to remember the numbers: I tap in four that feel right. They're wrong. I go tomato-red and step out of the queue.

I stand in a corner and try to will the numbers into my head. I try to ignore them and hope they'll steal into my mind.

When I'm sure that nobody is looking, I slap myself hard in the chops. The numbers remain disconcertingly just over the horizon.

There's a happy ending, fortunately. After I'd gazed into space for a few minutes, the numbers strolled into my head like nonchalant adolescents home late from a party.

What? Why were you worrying?

I wasn't. Until next time…