IN the end it was Kathryn Williams, then Chris Difford, but not Difford and Williams, who had been friends since meeting at one of Difford's songwriting retreats.

Kathryn was on her first day day back from a month of touring around Europe; Chris had driven up on the day from Brighton and would be taking the long road back to the south coast afterwards. And so, no time to plan, hopes were dashed they might squeeze in a duet finale to Saturday's sold-out opener to Selby Town Hall's autumn season.

Kathryn Williams has just released a Greatest Hits album; not her greatest hits, as she explained in the absence of such chart-bothering material, but a set of songs to accompany Laura Barnett's novel of that name: one of many projects in two decades of increasingly diverse songwriting well represented here.

Williams told anecdotes amusingly, accompanied her soft but strong voice on acoustic guitar, then took her seat at stage-side for Difford's set of stories from his new autobiography, Some Fantastic Place: My Life In And Out of Squeeze, peppered with Squeeze and solo numbers. Raconteur, wag, "book bingo" caller, agent provocateur for indiscreet yarns, he made Selby a fantastic place to be.