At the moment I’m promoting two books, ‘Death on the Thames’ published in March and not due to go paperback until January, and my concise Harold Wilson biography, published in September. (I’m also writing a third book which I hope to finish by the Spring.)

At Yeovil on Saturday evening a full house sacrificed ‘Strictly’ to hear me talk about both books with the novelist Lulu Taylor. I was a bit dubious about trying to cover two books and doing justice to neither but thanks to Lulu’s skilful stewardship we managed to shift between fiction and biography in a way that seemed to satisfy my audience. I was thrilled to discover at the book signing that one person in that audience knew Harold Wilson well. Meredith was one of the famous ‘garden girls’ at 10 Downing Street for almost a decade. She showed me photographs of herself with Prime Minister Wilson at Chequers and testified to his kindness and total lack of pretentiousness and pomposity. She wasn’t quite as complimentary about Marcia!