World of Gary Numan, musician Gary Numan, 54, was one of the pioneers of electronic New Wave music in the late 1970s and early 80s, best known for the number-one singles Cars and Are 'Friends' Electric?. He has released 21 studio albums, the latest, Dead Son Rising, last September. He lives in East Sussex with his wife, Gemma, their children Raven, eight, Persia, six, Echo Moon, five, an Old English Mastiff, three cats and eight sheep (numan.co.uk). Swords I collect fantasy swords, replicas from films, and have them displayed on the wall as you go up the stairs. Gemma has bought most of them for me for birthday and Christmas presents. The first one she gave me, which is my favourite, is Conan's (pictured above). It is very cool and has a secret dagger in the hilt. Children I have hoarded all my children's first things in a drawer: bottles, blankets and even the 'wee sticks' (pregnancy tests, pictured below) from each time Gemma was pregnant. Gemma and I didn't think we could have children; we tried for ages before having IVF with the first, then two happy accidents after that. Flying I got my flying licence in 1980 and flew around the world with my co-pilot, Bob Thompson, the year after. We actually had two attempts and succeeded the second time in my Piper Navajo (model, pictured below). On the first attempt in another aeroplane I owned, a Cessna 210 Centurion, we got as far as India before being arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. We went the other way on the second attempt and it took us about two months to complete the whole journey, with 50-plus stops. We arrived back on Christmas Eve 1981 and I remember thinking I'd get a hero's welcome, but there was nothing of the sort. When I was a kid it was big news when someone flew around the world in a little aeroplane, but nobody cared when I did it. Then to rub salt into my wounds the customs people ripped my aeroplane to pieces, looking for stuff. Crashing This propeller (pictured below) is from the Cessna 210, which I crashed in 1982. I was flying back from the Midem festival in France with a good pilot, a 747 captain, and my dad in the back. When we were midway over the Channel we lost the electrics and ended up crashing near Southampton. I had to get the undercarriage down with the emergency pump and managed it just before we hit the ground. We were hurtling across a field towards an embankment, but everything seemed to be in slow motion - I remember seeing individual blades of grass float past me. It was surreal. I was wondering where it was going to hurt first and thought the engine would take my legs off when we hit the embankment, but luckily we had enough speed so when I pulled the stick back, we ricocheted off the embankment and took off again, then dropped down in the middle of a road and stopped dead. Gemma Gemma used to come to all my shows and be down at the front, but she never did the groupie thing. She would ask for an autograph afterwards but never hang around, which I thought was frustrating but quite cute. The first time we spoke properly was after I noticed she wasn't at any gigs on a particular tour. Then I saw her at one of the last shows and asked her where she'd been. Her mother was dying and she was really upset so we sat down and chatted for about an hour. She made a really big impression on me. A few months later I got a message that her mum had died so I phoned Gemma and invited her to accompany me on a drive up north to do a radio show. She didn't believe it was me on the phone at first. I had to go through 30 questions to prove who I was. At the end of that day I thought she was amazing, the biggest personality I had ever met. Six months later, she moved in. Marriage Gemma and I have been together 20 years. I proposed after five years, as we were driving over the Dartford Bridge one day. Symbolically my wedding ring (pictured below) is massively important to me. This is a replacement ring because I lost the original one, which Gemma designed, but it is almost identical. I am very old-fashioned about marriage. It is for life and I mean it. I always knew that when I met the right girl the life I had before - being single, in a band, girls everywhere - would be over.