Not every person I've met during my years selling fish comes with a grand story.

Sometimes you simply remember people because they were nice.

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Geraldine Somerville and her husband, Bill, were two of those people.

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I began serving them during the earlier years of my fish round and continued to do so for many years.

Of course, Geraldine was already a very successful actress. Many people will know her as Lily Potter, Harry Potter's mother, in the Harry Potter films, while others will remember her from television programs such as Cracker.

But none of that really mattered when I was selling her fish.

Geraldine was just Geraldine.

She was lovely, natural and incredibly easy to talk to. Bill was exactly the same, and over the years I got to know them both simply as customers and as people.

One of my abiding memories of Geraldine has absolutely nothing to do with acting.

I remember seeing her outside playing football with her children and some of the other local kids.

There was something wonderfully ordinary about it. Here was somebody recognised by millions of people around the world, yet there was no sense of celebrity whatsoever. She was simply a mum outside having a kick-about with the children.

That was Geraldine as I knew her.

There is, however, one incident that has always stuck in my mind.

Geraldine was at the back of my fish van one day buying her fish when somehow she managed to drop her keys.

Unfortunately, they didn't land on the pavement.

Her house keys and car keys disappeared straight down the roadside drain beside my van.

There was that awful moment when we both realised exactly where they'd gone.

And let's just say the language that followed probably wouldn't have made it into a Harry Potter film.

Geraldine was understandably horrified.

It's funny what you remember about people. With all the films, television programs and famous names associated with Geraldine, one of my clearest memories is simply of her standing beside a fish van after managing to drop her house and car keys down a drain.

Perhaps that's because moments like that have nothing whatsoever to do with celebrity.

They're just life.

And that's really how I remember Geraldine and Bill.

There was never any pretence with either of them. They were lovely, down-to-earth people who were easy to talk to, and I always enjoyed seeing them.

Eventually Geraldine moved away and, as so often happens in life, I lost touch with them.

I'm sorry that I did.

There wasn't a dramatic goodbye or some great final chapter. One day you're calling regularly and seeing people who have become a familiar part of your week, and then circumstances change, somebody moves away and gradually they're no longer part of your life.

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Looking back over all these years on the fish round, I've realised just how many people have come into my life that way.

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You meet them almost by accident because they happen to buy their fish from you. You talk, you laugh, you get to know their families and you share all those little everyday moments that nobody else would ever know about.

And then sometimes, just as quietly as they arrived, they're gone.

I haven't seen Geraldine or Bill for many years now, but I remember them both with great affection.

Great, lovely people. Completely down to earth.

And sometimes, that's all the story needs to be.