The Mango Orchard blog

I've moved!

2011-10-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks for stopping by. I have recently started a new blog, which has all the entries from this one, plus much more.

I will no longer be posting on this site, so please come over to: http://robinbayley.wordpress.com/

See you there!

Robin

A-ha! Norwich here I come

2011-07-29T04:32:00.000-07:00

I am getting up slowly. My aim is to have a leisurely breakfast with the newspaper propped up against the toast rack before catching the 11.30 to Norwich, where I am due to appear at Writers’ Centre Norwich’s Summer Reads.

The phone rings. It’s a producer at BBC Radio Oxford, asking if Jo Thoenes can interview me for a programme about genealogy. I readily agree; I appeared on her show when I was at the Oxford Literature Festival in March and I was very impressed with her. I am booked in for a telephone interview in half an hour. I glance at the microwave clock. I realise that I have no time for a leisurely anything; I need to be showered and ready to leave before Jo calls back.

Jo Thoenes

Shaving, I really should have learned by now, is one thing you should not do in a hurry. As well as remove my stubble, I also manage to slice the end of my nose. I have no idea how I have managed to achieve this wound, but it’s certainly very real; my nose is throbbing and blood is trickling into the sink.

When the phone rings, I am sitting on the sofa, leaning forward to avoid staining my shirt, with a piece of toilet paper stuck to the drying blood on the end of my nose. Jo and I have a quick chat and then launch straight into the interview. I’m in mid-flow and suddenly my nose starts bleeding again. I realise I am beginning to lose the thread of what I am saying. I want to explain that for me, the most important of the family historian’s art, is oral testimony, but I am now trying to dab a drop of blood from the carpet, and the word “testimony” has completely escaped me. “Oral…err,” I grab another tissue. “Oral… um… ” I don’t guess what the second word may be in case my Tourette’s tendencies get the better of me.

Jo somehow manages to divert my attention from my nose and back to answering her questions but I can’t think that mine is the most illuminating interview she will conduct today.

A few hours later, my nose has stopped bleeding and I am being interviewed again, this time by Stephen Bumfrey at BBC Radio Norwich. It suddenly strikes me as I sit in this Norwich radio studio and that I am having a very Alan Partridge-esque day. I’m even staying in a Travelodge. All I need now is to have a fight with a trouser press.

After the interview, Sam Ruddock from Writers’ Centre Norwich escorts me round the bookshops in the centre of Norwich, all of which are pleasingly well-stocked with copies of The Mango Orchard, and some even have it in their window displays.

I am delighted to be part of Summer Reads. It’s a reading campaign Writers’ Centre Norwich organises with Norfolk Libraries. I am very proud to be part of the line-up of excellent books: Joseph O’Conner’s Ghost Light, Simon Armitage’s Seeing Stars, Evie Wyld’s After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, Andrey Kurkov’s The Good Angel Of Death, and Katie Kitamura’s The Longshot.

I have half an hour to return to the Travelodge and get changed for my talk at the fabulous Millennium Library. The attendance is good, the audience are generous listeners and ask wise questions (which thankfully didn’t include “What’s that gash at the end of your nose”) and buy a good number of books. Thanks to Sam, Katy and all at Writers’ Centre Norwich for including me in Summer Reads, and for organising it so well. I hope to have another book for you soon.

A Letter from Mexico

2011-07-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I experienced a minor miracle. It didn’t involve any would-be saints, Andy Murray winning a tennis match, or even David Blaine. It concerned a letter sent from Mexico.

The person who sent it didn’t have my address, so she sent it to someone who might. They didn’t have it either but sent it to somewhere I had lived, and the person now living there, redirected the letter to my present home. Some three weeks after the envelope left Mexico, I managed to snatch it away from the dog before it was chewed to bits (another minor miracle) and opened it.

It was a lovely letter, from a lady called Nina, who, having read The Mango Orchard, journeyed over 800 kilometres from her home in Mexico City to have her photo taken in front of the Bellavista factory, a place which plays an important role in the book.

Nina’s father, like my great grandfather, had set out from England for Mexico to work in the cotton industry, but unlike my ancestor, he stayed.

Nina with Juan Cañas, curator of the museum

I have received many very kind e-mails and letters from people who have read The Mango Orchard, and wanted to share the memories that the book provoked. As far as I know, Nina is the first person to travel so far to have her picture taken. I am very touched, thank you.

Taking my time with Robert Elms

2011-06-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

I arrive at Broadcasting House to appear on Robert Elms’ BBC London programme twenty minutes early; I didn’t want to turn up late and breathless and pant into the microphone.

I sign in at the security desk, sit and flick through the BBC staff magazine, Ariel. BBC reception areas seem to have been designed to give the impression that no licence fee money what so ever has been wasted on such frippery as comfortable chairs.

A young man with spiky hair and a heavy leather jacket appears at the security gates to take me up to the studio. He is about to speak when a man in a pork pie hat charges through the sliding doors. He is panting, red in the face, and cursing the inefficiencies of the Victoria Line. “I’ve just run all the way from Oxford f*cking Circus,” he says, and kneels in front of the water cooler and drinks several cups. I notice his hand is trembling. I decide against pointing out that the tube station is only about 100 yards away, or the fact that I had managed my own tube journey without a hitch.

Still breathing heavily, the man in the pork pie hat accompanies us to the studio floor. As soon as the lift doors open, he barges out and runs straight into the studio. I sit in the waiting area, and listen on the wall-mounted speakers to his continuing complaints about the short comings of the underground system, this time without the cuss words.

I had been told that I would be on-air just after 11, for about half an hour, but it’s 11.20 before I am called into the studio. I am introduced to Robert Elms and he tells me about his travels in Mexico as I am placed in front of a microphone on the other side of a padded desk from him.

The theme for the programme today is genealogy, and I am here to talk about The Mango Orchard as an example of a genealogical search which culminates in a remarkable discovery. I’ve been interviewed enough now to be able to tell the story about how I travelled in the footsteps of my great grandfather and discovered the Mexican village in which he had left over three hundred descendants, in several different ways. Today, Robert is getting the family history-themed, half hour version.

I am mystified when, only two minutes into my interview, Robert starts signalling for to me to make my answers shorter and snappier. What is he thinking? We’ve got thirty minutes to fill! The interview is almost over before I realise that, perhaps because of the late arrival of the man in the pork pie hat, I only have ten minutes. Or I had ten minutes. Suddenly it’s over and I am out in the street again.

I walk to Oxford Circus station and get stuck on the Victoria Line

Battling with Stupidity

2011-05-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was told by a doctor that I was suffering from “non-specific post-viral fatigue”. As well as utter exhaustion, the main symptom has been one of feeling a bit stupid, like a hangover when you’ve not been drinking. I have to confess that none of friends have noticed any difference.

Feeling hungover is not necessarily such a problem. Sure, it makes writing a bit slower, but I can generally function. At the weekend though, I am due to appear at Cowbridge Book Festival to talk about The Mango Orchard. If I am to avoid the audience slow-hand clapping like the one Tony Blair suffered from at the hands of the WI, I have to have my wits about me.

I go to collect my train tickets from Paddington station. I pocket the tickets and go to buy some lunch. With one eye on the clock, I do a quick circuit of M&S and then shuffle slowly forward, mind in neutral, in the long queue waiting to pay. The lady at the checkout has a cheery round face and sing-song accent. She tells me how much I owe. I look in my wallet. My credit card has gone. I must have left it in the ticket machine.

After trying and failing to find the number of my credit card company – the number is, of course, written on the back of the card – I go into the ticket office to see if it has been handed in. Amazingly, it has. (Bless you, whoever you were.)

I now have my credit card, but I still haven’t had my lunch. Feeling exhausted, a little stupid and hungry, is not a good combination. I have less than ten minutes to find something to eat and get on the train.

I again rush around the aisles of M&S and then stand in the long, slow-moving queue. Again, I am served by the woman with a sing-song voice. She doesn’t seem to remember me, despite the fact that the last time she saw me, ten minutes before, I had cursed loudly, suddenly dropped my shopping basket and run out of the store.

I find my train seat and sit down. I get out my paper, open my lunch, and spill it all over my one clean pair of trousers.

At Cardiff station, I wander down the platform, conscious of the dark stain in my crotch, and am greeted by my hosts, the local writer, John Williams, and his wife Charlotte, also an acclaimed novelist. They live in a lovely, book-filled house over-looking a park. We sit in their conservatory as the sunlight fades and I feel myself relax. There’s something about being out of London that enables me to switch off more than I ever can in the capital.

Signing a book for my beloved Godmother, who came to the talk

I sleep soundly, but wake early as I am to be collected and taken to the festival at 9.30. I’m still feeling a bit stupid, but there’s nothing like a live audience to wake you up. I had worried I might forget my own name, but the talk goes well and the questions really make me think. As I write this, I am desperately trying to remember what their brilliant questions were… but I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit stupid again…

The Mango Orchard Paperback launch party

2011-04-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am deeply indebted to the Mexican Tourist Board and the Mexican embassy who organised, and paid for, a press reception for the launch of The Mango Orchard paperback last week. Press, travel industry leaders, diplomats and VIPs gathered in the cool basement bar of the new Wahaca Soho restaurant on Wardour Street for delicious canapés and truly lethal (but very moreish) tequila cocktails.

It was a humbling reminder that Mexicans are the world’s most generous hosts. Gracias compañeros!

For Those About to Rock… a Cup of Gin

2011-04-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

A Report from behind the scenes at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

If the Hay Literary Festival is the book world’s Glastonbury, then Oxford is its Reading. It’s simply huge. Over a ten day period, three hundred writers talk about their work in theatres, halls, oak-panelled rooms and marquees.

As a writer appearing at the festival, it means I find myself chatting with travel writer Hugh Thomson, former BBC correspondent Sarah Mukherjee and legendary novelist Edna O’Brien; having lunch with David Starkey, or passing the time of day with Alan Yentob. If you will allow me to continue my musical analogy for a moment, I imagine like this is what X-Factor’s Olly Murs might feel like if he ever found himself rubbing shoulders back stage with Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison.

I first see Edna O’Brien when I enter the Green Room. She is sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, bright sunlight back-lighting her hair, giving it the appearance of a halo. I had left my bag by her chair and I am about to collect it when she stops me with an extended hand. “Are you here to interview me?” she asks.

“No,” I reply, wishing I was. “But would you like a cup of tea?”

“My dear,” she says, touching my elbow, “That’s just what I want. They only offered me gin.”

I had been offered gin too “for Dutch courage”, and in a tea cup “so no one will know.” Edna and I agree that facing an audience half cut is not a good idea.

Just before my talk is due to begin, I am asked to sign a book that has been signed by all the writers at the festival. The signature before mine is that of Ron Moody, he has drawn the figure of Fagin – a role that helped to make his name. I sign. No one will be able to read that, I think, so I draw a Mexican sombrero to give a clue. I am feeling quite pleased with it, until Edna points out that it looks like a traffic cone in a puddle.

It’s then straight into the talk. It takes place in one of the oak-panelled chambers just off the main quad. The audience listens attentively, asks intelligent questions, and then buys a pleasing quantity of books.

From there I go to the main tent to give my second talk, to a different audience about exactly the same thing. This talk is sponsored by Highland Park whisky. The concept is for the audience to sample their whisky, while they sample some readings. Clever, eh?

I generally try to start each talk with a joke or something that relates to the event. I wrack my brains, and the only link I can think to connect whisky with The Mango Orchard is that my great grandfather’s father drank too much of it and died of dropsy. Perhaps this is not the kind of thing I should mention.

As I am waiting to be introduced, there’s an announcement for the beginning of an event with Terry Jones. At a stroke, I lose almost my entire audience. I start anyway, and bit by bit, the seats begin to fill. Eventually the crowd spills out beyond the entrance.

Afterwards, a man approaches me. He congratulates me on the book and tells me how much he enjoyed my talk. He moves closer and says, conspiratorially, “Could you do me a really big favour?”

“Sure,” I say, reaching into my pocket for my pen to sign his book.

“Could you possibly use your influence to get me another wee dram?”

Early morning panic - it's launch day!

2011-04-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

I live opposite a pub. It’s a posh gastro pub – the kind of place that offers braised llama loin with a lemon and tarragon reduction, and charges the price of my book (£7.99) for a cup of frothy coffee. There’s generally a combination of yummy mummies, dog walkers and confused tourists sitting outside. I like this, as it allows me to imagine, just for the moment it takes me to walk past it on my way to the tube, that I live in a chic café society.

The only downside to where I live is that the ingredients to said pretentious menu seem to arrive at odd hours throughout the night. It is for that reason that I have been awake since the small hours; that and the sudden launch day panic and fretting about all I have to do in the next few days.

Today I have to be in Oxford by 2pm to be interviewed by Jo Thoenes of BBC Radio Oxford to talk about the book and my appearance at the Oxford Literary Festival on Sunday. I also have two other press interviews and have an article to write.

The last two articles I wrote are on sale today: Family History Monthly and Family Tree magazine. It was tricky to write two completely different articles to similar audiences about the same subject, but I’m pleased with the result. Both issued look really good.

I had better get on. There’s a press reception to attend to as well…

Essex Book Festival

2011-03-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

For the second time in two days, I find myself on the train heading from Liverpool Street station towards Essex. Today, I’m going to Prettygate Library in Colchester, to speak at the Essex Book Festival.

I had allowed enough time to walk from the station, but when I arrive in Colchester, and I see the spitting grey sky, I jump into a cab. I arrive at the venue half an hour early so I while away the time in the nearby pub. The Jefferson Starship song We Built This City on Rock and Roll is playing on a loop on the jukebox, to about four regulars.

Sylvia, the library supervisor, welcomes me. She introduces me to Karen, the Audience Development Officer (what a wonderful title!) and the rest of the staff.

“Thanks for your Tweet,” Sylvia says as she takes my coat. “And we heard you on Radio Essex as well. We had a few people phone up after they heard you.”

She takes me up to the staff room which looks out on to the car park. It is empty. I look up at the sky. It’s still grey and spitting. Will anyone come?

Karen comes up to collect me, and she has a smile on her face. I take comfort from this. As Audience Development Officer, I figure she wouldn’t be smiling if she hadn’t managed to develop a decent audience. Indeed, when we come down the stairs, I see that the library is full.

Karen’s job of developing the audience, I see, is not limited to getting them to come, she also acts as compere. “I think we have some of the local book group here,” she says, and the whole of the front row cheers.

The highlight of many talks is often the Q&A session; today is no exception. All the questions are intelligent and thought-provoking. One man tells me how much the book had meant to him because of his own family story which, in different circumstance, had also taken him to Mexico. There is real emotion in his tale, and I’m not the only one to be brushing away a tear.

Pedro

Back to London and I go straight to the premiere of the Colombian film, Los Viajes del Viento, or Wind Journeys, screened as a fund-raiser for Friends of Colombia for Social Aid. The film is stunning. I particularly appreciate it because the Colombian landscape is extraordinary and reminds me of the journey I did through Colombia with my friend Pedro (chapter 3 in The Mango Orchard) to La Guajira at the northern tip of South America.

I arrive home and check my e-mails. For the first time in nearly a year, I have a mail from… Pedro.

From Proud Father to Drug-Dealing Pimp in Three Easy Steps

2011-03-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

The final weeks before birth is I gather, the most tiring and tiresome period of pregnancy. You don’t sleep well and can never get comfortable. It reminds me of the old Joan Rivers joke: “I was screaming ‘get this damn thing out of me!’. Nine months earlier I was screaming the exact same thing.”

Women, especially mothers, tend to give me short shrift when I compare the publication of a book to having a baby. But after weeks of anxious waiting, and at least one false alarm, this morning the little bundle carrying the paperback (yes, with photos) finally arrives.

I rip open the box and there it is at last. I don’t have time to spend much quality time with my new arrival though, as I realise I am running late for my appearance on the Steve Scruton show on BBC Radio Essex. I run to the tube, hoping someone will notice the book I am brandishing.

Radio BBC Essex is in a white-walled building in a leafy part of Chelmsford. From the outside, if it weren’t for the BBC livery, it could be a posh dentist’s surgery. I walk into the studio as Steve is in the middle of a link. I sit down and squint at the wall-mounted TV screen showing BBC 24. The images are of men riding in the back of pick-ups carrying rocket-launchers. I read the caption at the bottom of the screen: “Lady Gaga.” That doesn’t make much sense, but I have poor eyesight, and I’m dyslexic, so I’m used to reading things that no one else sees. I look again, and see it says “Libya”.

Steve finishes his link and leans across a desk of microphones to shake my hand. I like him immediately – open and friendly. “Thanks for the Tweet from the train,” he says. I’m always amazed that anyone reads them.

The interview begins and before I know it, I find myself telling the story about how I nearly became a drug-dealing pimp in Colombia. This was probably not the kind of story Steve had in mind when he booked me, but we have a good chat and he very generously gives my appearance at the Essex Book Festival a good plug, and makes admiring noises – live on air – about my new pride and joy.

Transvestites and National Treasures

2011-03-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

A big thank you to everyone who came to hear me speak at Words by the Water last week, especially to Maggie and her book group, who suggested the festival to me in the first place.

I had fully intended to tweet in between readings, but had forgotten that the Lake District is almost entirely a mobile free zone. There was apparently a weak signal next to the lake, a few hundred yards from the theatre, but it was raining stair rods most of the time, and when it wasn’t, it was too cold for me to have any practical use of my fingers, so the update has had to wait until now.

Someone described Words by the Water as being in like “an interactive Radio 4”. Indeed, Melvyn Bragg was there and I attended some wonderful talks by the likes of Peter Hennessy, Roy Hattersley and Jean Baggott. I also got to meet the brilliant John Gray and Ted Nield and had been promised an introduction to John Simpson, but Muammar Gaddafi had other ideas.

During my stay there I learned that there is only one lake in the Lake District (Bassenthwaite, all the others are officially “waters”, “tarns”, “meres” or reservoirs) and that David Lloyd-George sired over 50 illegitimate children in Carnarvon alone. I learned that in the 1950s, Britain’s nuclear deterrent depended on AA phone boxes and the Prime Minister’s driver having some loose change. I also discovered that JG Ballard refused to invest any money and kept everything he ever earned in his current account. I was told by a highly respected broadcaster and national treasure (who shall remain nameless) that he keeps fit by running up and down stairs… in the nude.

Also in attendance most days at the festival was six-foot-something Welsh drag artist, who spent her days walking grandly through the theatre foyer claiming to be “the world’s first female baritone”, and trying to lure people up to the Sky Arts den to ‘see her arias’.

Ps: Thanks to Jo-anne for her media advice!

Comic Relief in Carlisle

2011-03-16T04:53:00.000-07:00

In The Lanes shopping centre in the centre of Carlisle, there’s a camera pointing at a booth specially erected for people to tell jokes for Comic Relief. A little boy with spiky hair is being urged by his friends to tell a joke. It looks like he has several in mind. He smirks to the camera: “What did the elephant say when he stubbed his toe?” He pauses for effect, and shouts, “Shit!”

His friends shriek with laughter. The camera operator smiles as rolls his eyes. Another bit of footage that they won’t be able to play out.

I’m here to be interviewed by the BBC Radio Cumbria legend, Gordon Swindlehurst, to promote my appearance at the Words by the Water Festival. Being a native of Lancashire and having lived in Mexico for a time, Gordon is the ideal person to talk to about The Mango Orchard.

I had expected a massive bank of record decks and mixing desks, but thinking about it, that’s probably because the last outside broadcast I attended was a Simon Bates Radio 1 Roadshow, in about 1985. Things have obviously moved on.

Gordon wears a pair of headphones and wanders around with a microphone with the casualness of someone chatting on a mobile. A woman from the local café delivers him a pasty and he gives a wink of thanks and continues to talk away.

As he takes a break for the news, a couple of women laden with bags of heavy shopping, approach him. “You must know some jokes,” he says.

“Oh no,” replies one. “Only my husband.”

Someone in the studio plays Day Tripper by the Beatles. I sit down next to Gordon and prepare for the interview. I notice that he has two sheets of paper on his clip board. On one I can see my name and a summary of The Mango Orchard. On the other sheet, the word “Duck” is written on the top.

“What’s that all about?” I ask him just before the red light comes on. “You’ll see,” he says, enigmatically and then, in the space of 15 seconds, manages to link together some news about lager prices with some concept about a virtual pub, while some vaguely duck-like sound effects play in the background.

Just as he deftly segues from this surreal monologue to introduce me and my book, a pneumatic drill starts up and a hailstorm begins to hammer down on the roof above us. Gordon, a true pro, carries on regardless and we have a great chat. Like all good broadcasters, he has the ability to make an interview seem like a chat in a pub.

Interview over, I am encouraged to tell a Mexican-themed joke in the Comic Relief booth. I can’t think of one, so I opt for: “What’s green and sits in the corner? A naughty frog.”

Another joke that I’ll be surprised if they want to play out …

PS: Thanks to Adam for the photos

Great grandparents of the Caribbean

2010-12-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

I arrive in Manchester to film a short documentary for the BBC about the story told in The Mango Orchard. I hadn’t prepared for the night time dagger-like icy wind that rushes in to the carriage when I open the train door at Piccadilly station.

In the morning I am collected from my hotel by the person due to interview me, Judy, who happens to be an old friend of mine. She remembers my complaint about the lack of a hospitality suite when I have previously been on the BBC and very sweetly picks me up from my hotel with a bag full of fresh fruit, which of course, I don’t touch.

She drives me to Helmshore Mill, a working mill and museum, where we join the rest of the crew and I’m introduced to Christine Taylor, a local historian, invited to add some expertise on the area where my great grandfather grew up. I have lots of questions for her but every time I ask anything, Ged the producer stifles the conversation; he wants to capture my reactions to what she’s saying on film. It takes time to set up the shot, organise the lighting and microphones. I’m standing with Christine in front of a trestle table, on which are arranged photographs of Tottington in days of yore. I begin to leaf through them but am again told to wait until the cameras are running.

We talk about the weather.

The team is ready and just as the record light lights up on the camera, Ged says, “By the way, Christine has a surprise for you.”

I have no idea what this surprise may be, but as I spent years investigating my great grandfather’s story, I can’t believe that anyone has managed to uncover any document I haven’t yet seen, so I brace myself, ready to feign amazement. The camera is zooming in on me and I’m beginning to feel self-conscious. I realise that my face has frozen into a most unconvincing smile and as I suddenly don’t know what to do with my hands I wedge one into my back pocket. This must look very camp but I hold the pose.

Christine hands me two sheets of paper. “I found a letter your great grandfather wrote on his way to Mexico.”

“What?!” I no longer have to pretend to be amazed. I am overwhelmed. I spent months looking for this.

I read the letter, and forget that cameras are aimed at me. I read about the storms he endured – just as I had imagined – but then I see where he wrote the letter: Jamaica. What the hell was he doing in Jamaica?? And it’s not just Jamaica. He describes going for a drive along the side of the abandoned Panama Canal project “hundreds of railway waggons and scores of engines rotting away…” He talks about passing though the Virgin Isles and Haiti, where “the natives worship a god called Omar, and it is a common thing for mothers to eat their babies as a sacrifice to this god.”

Not for the first time, my great grandfather has dumbfounded me. His journey to Mexico didn’t take five weeks, as I had understood; it took over seven months! What was he doing? Did he leave scores of other secret families scattered around the Caribbean?

Maybe I should pop over and have a look.

The filming continues at a handful of other north Manchester locations. Judy and I are filmed walking around the mill in Tottington where my great grandfather worked. The mill is now a carpet factory and there’s little evidence of the mill that there once was. Forklift trucks with enormous, spikes on the front like jousting sticks, speed around carrying roles of carpet from one end of the factory to another. I have rarely been in a factory before. It is deafening.

How do I feel? Judy wants to know. It’s always a tricky one to answer. I’m not sure. I mutter something about my great grandfather and Judy is nodding.

“That sounded like a close,” says Ged.

“That sounded like a close to me,” confirms the cameraman. I am not sure what I’ve just said. To find out, I guess I’ll have to tune in in the New Year when it is screened.

Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow and me... the truth

2010-11-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

My friend Claire sends me a text message. ‘I’ve just heard the new Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow single on the radio,’ she says, ‘And they’ve nicked the opening line from your book.’

I go on-line to listen to the song and read the lyrics. I’ve never tried to do this before, and I’m amazed how easy it is. Within 30 seconds of having received the text I am watching the video; an Americana Brokeback bromance gone sour and patched up within the four minutes and twenty three seconds it takes them to sing the song.

The song is okay, but the opening line is stunning:

“Well there’s three versions of this story mine, yours and then the truth”

I turn to page three, line eight and nine of The Mango Orchard:

“There are three versions of every story: my version, your version and the truth.”

They are virtually identical, apart from the fact that the line in The Mango Orchard is grammatically correct. My version was also released into the public domain over six months before the Robbie and Gary single came in to being. I post the observation on Facebook and Twitter. The responses come in thick and fast, most along the lines of “sue the bastards”. I even get some offers to help me to do just that.

I don’t profess to be any legal expert – Igglepiggle from In the Night Garden could probably be more reasonably expected to form a coherent legal opinion than me – but I’m pretty sure that taking two multimillionaire pop stars to court over a line which I copied from a conversation with my grandmother 35 years ago is probably not the right way to go.

I opt for trying to exact some PR advantage from the “coincidence”. I phone Robbie’s management company. A very well-spoken lady answers. I explain the situation and I can sense her hackles rising until I say that I’m not looking to take any legal action, I’m just interested to know if either Gary or Robbie have read my book, and if they haven’t, maybe they’d like to (and be photographed reading it).

‘Well they are together at the moment, as they are promoting the single,’ she says. ‘Send me an e-mail with the details and I’ll forward it to them. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.’

I send the mail and wait. And wait.

A week goes by and I haven’t heard anything, so I phone up. Again, a very well-spoken voice answers my call. I ask for to speak to Sarah and am told that she is in a meeting so I explain to the well-spoken voice about the similarity of the line in the song to my book, and say I am interested to know if either of the two singers has read The Mango Orchard. She asks me for my details and says Sarah will call me back the moment she returns from her meeting.

‘Thank you very much,’ I say, ‘and can you give me your name?’

There is a pause and hear panic. Then very meekly she says, ‘Sarah...’

There are three versions of every story; mine, yours and ‘they’re in a meeting’.

The Great Social Quandary

2010-07-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

First of all, an apology to all those people to whom I promised I would write regularly during my recent trip to Mexico. Initially I was just enjoying the holiday; for the first time in several years, I was not spending every waking moment trying to carve copy out of what I saw round me, and then, after a few weeks of not doing very much, the only thing of interest that was going on was something which I couldn’t talk about. Still can’t. Maybe I’ll explain in a few weeks.

Apart from kicking back and doing very little with the sun on my face, the main purpose of being in Mexico was to visit the family, and take The Mango Orchard home. The family held the book like a newborn. Their faces shone with excitement and pride. And then they flicked through the book to see what I had said about them.

The BBC took advantage of my trip by giving me a camera to film some scenes for a documentary, due to be aired later in the year. They asked me to film some typical Mexican scenes, as well as me talking with the family, and visiting the cotton mills where my great grandfather worked... and from where the initial sprouts of rebellion that became the Mexican Revolution began.

After a few weeks with the family, I went on a road trip around the country, often finding myself in Cotos Privados – gated communities with identical houses, arranged round swimming pools, pristine lawns and 24 hour security. These places are safe, that’s why people like them. Children play in the street, doors remain unlocked, but I couldn’t help feeling I was on the set for the Truman Show.

Staying in these new, posh estates gave rise to the Great Dilemma. Not about whether or not it is morally right to have great swathes of urban space from which the general public cannot enter. No, something of much greater importance: this is the ultimate social quandary... about toilet paper.

In most bathrooms around Mexico, and indeed of all Latin America, next to the toilet is a wastepaper basket. Everyone knows not to throw paper (or anything else) in to the loo.

But surely the people who had built these state-of-the-art houses in which I was staying had bothered to install modern plumbing, no? It’s not a question you can easily ask, though.

You are suddenly faced with a predicament: what would be more embarrassing, to be responsible for blocking the pipes with paper they weren’t designed for and flooding the house with raw sewage, or to put your soiled toilet paper in a bin normally used for cotton buds and empty shampoo bottles?

It’s a question I pondered long and hard. I generally felt that flooding the house with raw sewage would be marginally less embarrassing.

Any thoughts?

Speaking to Mexico from my roof

2010-05-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

The day does not begin well.

When I stumble out of bed I get a sharp, stabbing pain in my lower back. It’s a familiar pain which afflicts me every six months or so, and over the years has kept several osteopaths, chiropractors and acupuncturists in gravy.

The most painful part is always getting dressed. I hop around my bedroom, swearing loudly for about ten minutes, trying to get my trousers on. What I really want to do is swallow handfuls of strong pain-killers and go back to bed but I have to get up. I have things to do.

I rub in some deep heat cream and hobble to the bank to order my travellers’ cheques for my trip to Mexico next week, and then hobble back in time to be interviewed over the phone by the Manchester Evening News.

Interview over, I set about tidying the flat in preparation for the arrival of a film crew from Televisa, Mexican’s biggest TV network. And just in case they want some tea, I pop out to the shops to buy some milk. I have never known any Mexican to drink tea, but you never know.

The rushing to the shop and bending over to pick things off the floor does my back no favours. I swallow some pills and rub in more deep heat cream. I realise the flat is beginning to smell like a rugby changing room.

It’s five minutes until Televisa are due to arrive and I remember I need to send a text to someone I am due to meet this evening. But where is my phone? I looking on my desk and in the kitchen, I pat my pockets, look in the jacket that I wore to the bank. It’s not there. I call my number from the landline so I can track it down. It goes straight to voice mail. That’s what happens when someone steals your phone: they take out the SIM card so they can sell the handset.

I swear again. And again.

It’s now 3pm. The Mexicans are due to be here, but I need my phone so I can concentrate on my interview. If I have left it at the shop, the sooner I get there, the more likely I am to find it.

My mobile is not at the shop. That must meant that unless I dropped it on my way to or back, my neighbours, the ones I have only seen once, when I asked them not to make so much noise in the mornings, must have broken in to my flat and stolen it. The bastards.

When I get back, there is a Mexican film crew standing at my front door, looking at their watches. I lead them upstairs and try to forget about the phone. It’s my first interview in Spanish, and I am a little apprehensive; in any interview one needs to be pithy and concise. That’s tricky enough in English, much more so in a second language.

We are standing on the roof terrace and I am talking into a Televisa microphone that the journalist is holding towards me. I try to imagine my Mexican aunts and uncles eating their breakfast sometime next week, and what their reactions will be when I suddenly appear on the screen.

“Ay, mira, es Robiiiin!”

After the interview they film me sitting at my desk pretending to be fascinated by what’s on my computer screen, looking through the photos of Mexico, and finally, of me walking out of the door with my rucksack, pretending to go to the airport. The pain my rucksack gives me when I sling it over my shoulder for the camera does not bode well for my trip to Mexico.

I now have to sort out my stolen phone. I spend over an hour cancelling and replacing the SIM card and convincing the insurance company to give me a new handset. They eventually agree, but say they can’t deliver it straight away. I won’t receive it until July.

It’s 5.30pm now and I remember I am meant to be meeting someone at 6pm. Her number is of course on my phone which has been stolen and the SIM cancelled. I send her a mail, hoping to reach her before she leaves the office. My laptop has gone into hibernation mode and as I wait for it to warm up, I move some papers. And my mobile phone falls on the desk.

Speaking to the nation from a cupboard under the stairs

2010-05-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

My taxi pulls up to the gate at BBC TV Centre. The security guard asks the driver who he is there to see. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder to where I am sitting. The back windows must be tinted because the security man peers through the driver’s open window to look at me. From the look of disappointment on his face, he had been hoping for someone famous. He checks his list, and the car is allowed through and I walk into the grand art deco entrance.

I am due to be taken to the 5Live studio. A producer is to meet and prepare me for the interview which will take place “down the line” to the Stephen Nolan programme in Manchester. For some reason, the receptionist insists that the producer doesn’t work there, and escorts me to a tiny studio under the stairs beneath the reception of Television Centre.

There are no producers to be seen. This can’t be right. “No problem,” says the receptionist, “It will all work fine, as long as this light is on here,” indicating the power switch on the wall.

It is the hottest day of the year and there is no air-conditioning. I undo a couple of shirt buttons and gulp some water as I look around. The “studio” resembles a store room more than a place from which one can broadcast to the nation. The new government may well whine about excessive spending at the BBC, but I can assure them that there has not been any excessive spending here. There are two pairs of headphones on the coffee-stained table, one of them is in several pieces, the other has wires escaping from some unstuck gaffer tape. I sit on the chair and sink so low I can barely rest my chin on the desk top. I reach for the headphones, which I have to hold in place so they don’t slip off my head, and wait.

Nothing happens.

Sweat is dripping off me now. The interview is meant to begin any moment and I have doubts that anyone knows I’m here.

I am about to return to reception and demand to speak to a producer when lights begin to flash on the console in front of me and I can hear the disembodied voice of a producer in Manchester, sounding as if he is leading a séance. “Robin, are you there?”

Before I know it, I am speaking to Stephen Nolan and we begin the interview. It’s probably available on iPlayer somewhere, but I wouldn’t encourage anyone to listen to it. Stephen was very good, but his interviewee was not at his best.

I notice my shirt is soaking wet when I stagger back up the stairs. I turn my phone back on and see I have several messages from London-based 5Live producers, no doubt speaking from plush, air-conditioned studios, wondering where on earth I am.

A sleepy reflection on the week

2010-05-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday afternoon and it’s time to reflect on the week. I think the achievement of which I am most proud is managing to sleep through the chainsaw of the tree surgeon working in the next door garden.

I did work up in a blind panic though, thinking I had also managed to sleep through the taxi due to take me to the BBC at 7.30. Fortunately, I now realise that I have another four hours to fully wake up. The taxi is to take me to record an interview for the Stephen Nolan show on BBC 5Live, which will be played out tonight, tomorrow or Sunday.

Unless I fall asleep again (and you never know), you can listen to the interview on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070jd4 .

On Tuesday there was a really well-written article in The Times by Helen Rumbelow. I noted that she seemed to suggest I have commitment issues, though...

Summer Party

2010-05-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to my publishers’ summer party. The invite, which arrives in a calligraphy-written envelope, evokes the type of “Dahling! Love your dress! Mwaa, mwaa” soirée at which my friends seem to assume all writers spend their evenings.

Shortly before I leave the house, I call to check the dress code. This turns out to be a good move, the dress code is very strict, and I dig out some clothes I wore in the days when I had a job to go to.

I arrive and I am ushered through to a Georgian drawing room and given a sticker with my name on.

I mingle. Momentarily, it feels like I am walking into the playground on my first day at school and I am the only person who doesn’t know everyone else.

Then I realise I do know some people, even if they don’t know me. Sebastian Faulks is the first person I notice, predictably surrounded by an adoring crowd. Then I spot Ross Kemp – I think I have only ever seen him in is Extras and the Labour Party election broadcast, in which he was very convincing, but has he written a book? I decide not to ask him this question. He looks pretty hard.

I see another bloke built like an armour-plated Hummer. He has a tree trunk neck and slightly cauliflower ear. I assume he must be a rugby player, here to promote his memoir. I watch him move fluidly through the multitude, trying to work out where I have seen him before. He collects a glass of champagne from a waitress and returns to a petite woman encircled by a group of people. Then I realise who he is when I recognise the woman he is cuddling: the publishing sensation Katie Price.

Trevor, my publisher, sees me and introduces me to a glamorous lady from the Daily Mail with sparkly eye-liner. She tells me about her book, about “William Harry”. I have never heard of the man, but don’t want to reveal my ignorance and so nod and ask what angle she has taken.

It’s not until she talks about Kate Middleton that I realise she said “William and Harry”. Even I know who they are.

Non-pulp non-fiction

2010-05-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I was woken this morning by a text from my friend Luke. He was calling me Tarantino Bayley. I had no idea what he was talking about until I bought a copy of The Independent: http://bit.ly/aaxFUN

Press and Biscuits

2010-05-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

I am up early. A journalist and photographer from The Times are due this morning and the flat is a tip. I also realise that I have no biscuits to offer them. Or milk, or tea, or coffee.

While I am out, my agent calls me to tell me that a radio station, having seen an article about the book in a newspaper, is interested interviewing me about the film version of the book.

“Fine,” I say, not really concentrating as I try to decide between All Butter Flapjacks or Luxury Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I go for the Flapjacks and fret all the way back to the house whether I have made the right choice. I am plumping up cushions, and wondering whether I should pop out for the Chocolate Chips when the journalist arrives. I take her coat and offer her a cup of tea or coffee and hope the biscuits are acceptable.

“Just a glass of water, thanks,” she says as she gets out her notepad and Dictaphone. I knew I should have gone for the Chocolate Chips.

The Dictaphone is as big as an old mobile phone and squeaks as the spools turn. Somehow, I find this reassuring.

I am impressed by the thoroughness of her interrogation. She drills down deep on the parallels between my great grandfather and me, and our attitudes to relationships, family and commitment. Afterwards I feel like I have been on the psychiatrist’s couch and just hope that my answers make good copy. Being interviewed in the press is a bit like being in an exam; you never really have any idea how you have done until the results are published.

Shortly after she leaves, the photographer arrives. I was hoping for a coterie of make-up and wardrobe assistants, and that I would get a whole season’s worth of free clothing, but it’s not that type of shoot, apparently. It’s just the photographer and me. He photos me on the roof terrace, the landing and the stairs. “Stair wells often have good light,” he says.

As he is setting up the last shot, the researcher from BBC Tees phones to make sure I’m okay to be interviewed for the primetime show. I say I am and go back face the camera.

An hour later and I am on the phone, listening to BBC Tees. I am staring out of the window, my mind drifting. Suddenly, I’m on.

“And we’re now joined by the writer of The Mango Orchard, which is about to be made into a Hollywood feature film.”

I have to answer briefly, and positively, about the movie which is far from being finalised. I talk about the conversations, rather than the inconclusive nature of them.

“Why do you think your book will make a good film?” she asks.

I tell the story. I talk about the tales my grandma told me as a boy, about the bandits and the bags of silver and the narrow escape from the Mexican Revolution. Then I talk about my journey, about how I tracked down the small village near a small town near Guadalajara... Over five minutes as gone and I haven’t heard a word from the interviewer. Is she still there? I carry on talking about the factory where my great grandfather worked, about my newly-found uncle who greeted me... I still haven’t heard a thing and I wonder whether it is more pathetic to be speaking to a dead telephone line, or to say “Hello? You there?” in the middle of a live broadcast.

Finally she interrupts me. “Who would you like to play you in the film?”

“James McAvoy,” I say. I like Martin Compston, who recently starred in The Disappearance of Alice Creed, but I momentarily forget his name.

I hang up and open the packet of All Butter Flapjacks.

Chatting for the first time

2010-04-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I did something I have never done before. And it being the first time, I was abit rubbish at it. I was a chat virgin.

I have had one-to-one chats on Facebook but until last week, when I was invited to chat to individual readers and reading groups around the country, was the first time I had been involved in a mass-chat. I’m fairly sure that’s not the right terminology and saying “mass-chat” is a bit like your dad talking about musical combos or the hit parade, but hey, you know what I mean.

I logged on to the site http://www.rchatrandom.co.uk/archive.asp?sessionid=42. Nothing. I waited some more, and still nothing happened. The moderator sent me a text saying that there was a glitch. Questions began to appear: Was I still in a relationship with Juanita? What were my motivations for writing the book? How did I keep track of the conversations contained in the book?

All I could do was sit and look at the screen and watch the questions build up: was I surprised at the large number of relatives you found in Mexico? Would I like to give a talk on the book at Words by the Water at Keswick?

After about fifteen minutes, the screen finally flickered to life and then I had to write as fast as I could to try and answer all the questions before the clock ticked down. It was like being in an exam, but with nice questions.

After an hour, time was up. The screen went blank and I having spent an hour typing to furiously to people all over the country, I found myself alone in a dark room.

I got up and made something to eat.

Reading at Hampstead Waterstones

2010-04-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

The day of the reading in Hampstead arrives.

I receive a flurry of e-mails from friends who are Arsenal fans, making their excuses. It’s the local derby, they’re sure that I understand. I have long learned that one can’t fight football. My 40^th birthday was the day that England played Portugal in the quarter final of the 2006 World Cup. Love me as they do, I knew there was no chance of getting more than a smattering of anti-football friends to attend any party that night.

Tonight though, I have no choice. I agreed to talk about my book a long time ago.

I enjoy talking about my book; it’s certainly easier than writing it. My only fear is that no one will turn up. I dread speaking to rows of empty seats. It used to happen sometimes when, in my TV days, I used to fly to conferences obscure parts of Eastern Europe to talk about my TV channel.

I once travelled for seven hours to attend a film festival in Czech Republic. When I arrived, the organiser, a corpulent man with a thick moustache and permed hair, said that he wanted me to host a press conference.

No one had said anything about a press conference. I couldn’t think who would be interested in listening to me give a press briefing when I had nothing to announce, but he insisted that local press would be fascinated to hear from me.

He led me into a lecture theatre, where there were three people sat at the back. One of them, I discovered later, was the organiser’s wife, another, was lost and walked out as soon as I began to talk. The other woman was, she insisted, a journalist.

I talked about my TV channel for about ten minutes, until I could think of nothing more to say, then I asked if anyone had any questions.

The one journalist put up her hand, and asked if I could help her. I said I would try. “My TV hasn’t worked for months,” she said. “Do you know where I can get it fixed?”

I arrive at Waterstones in Hampstead, where I see three people and about 35 empty seats. My heart sinks. I am led upstairs to the staff room, a spacious room with a sofa and large coffee table, on which are two bottles of kosher wine. The charming girl who is charged with looking after me offers me a glass, and tells me tales of previous speakers – some of whom are household names – and how much they had to drink before, during and after their talk.

She leads me back downstairs. I have a feeling of dread and prepare to tell rows of empty seats all about my journey in the footsteps of my great grandfather.

There are three empty seats at the front. All the rest are taken. As I begin my talk, more people arrive, then more. Two extra rows are added as I speak. Having spent five years writing this book, it is pleasing in the extreme that people are interested to hear what I have to say about the experience. The questions are plentiful and intelligent.

Then we all go to the pub.

Better out than in

2010-04-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

It turns out that it wasn’t a hangover, or brain cancer. I go to see the dentist who tells me I have a “mischievous wisdom tooth”, and pulls it out.

I now have a disconcertingly large hole in my mouth, but my headache has gone. Looks like I’ll make Wednesday’s reading after all.

Will I live long enough to give my talk?

2010-04-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Four days after my big night out and the hangover is no better. I’m dizzy, my brain feels like it has been replaced by candyfloss, clamped with a vice and muffled with a tea-cosy. My thought processes are slow, and a long way from my mouth – not a good day to be talking to the press. Today it has been women’s and genealogy magazines, and the regional newspapers in the North Yorkshire.

I go for a walk to the newsagent to clear my head. I buy the Ham & High to look at the interview I gave to promote my talk at Hampstead Waterstones on 14^th April. The interview is not there.

I write to the interviewer and am told the piece was filed to late and will appear next week, a day after my appearance at Waterstones.

I have a lie down but can’t sleep; my head is too painful. I convince myself that I have a brain tumour, and wonder if I will live long enough to give my talk.

PR with a tequila hangover

2010-04-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

It’s a Tuesday and though I’m too old to be talking in these terms with any degree of dignity, I still have a hangover from my night out with some Spanish friends in East London on Saturday night. I have vague recollections of drinking gold-fish bowls of tequila through two foot long straws and after that it really is a bit hazy.

In just over a week I have my reading in Waterstone’s in Hampstead. Maybe it’s time I did some PR to promote it. Shame my head feels like it’s been hit by a truck.

I call the local newspaper, the Ham and High – the clue is in the name, it is sold (mainly) in newsagents around Hampstead and Highgate. They are interested in the story and they ask for a copy of the book, so I jump on my bike and cycle to their offices in Swiss Cottage.

There I am met by a reporter in a sharp suit and taken to a coffee shop for an interview. I had thought I was only dropping off the book, and I feel a bit shabby in my bicycle clips and windswept appearance, not to mention the stabbing pain I still feel down one side of my face.

The reporter has done his research and already knows an alarming amount about me. His questions are thorough and fair and I leave feeling happy with the answers I have given.

I have barely recovered my breath from cycling up the hill when I receive a phone call from Sarah Freeman at The Yorkshire Post for another interview. My mind still feels like it’s on a work-to-rule but she’s an engaging interviewer.

A few more phone calls, a few more mails and I have a lie down.

Radio Sheffield

2010-04-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

I arrive at Radio Sheffield to be interviewed by the legendary presenter, Rony Robinson.

The car park is empty and the lights in reception are off. I ring a bell by an intercom. It rings loudly for several minutes, then stops. I call the number of the radio producer and find myself listening to a recorded message about station opening hours.

I ring the intercom once more and am buzzed in by a bright-eyed production assistant who takes me to the waiting area.

Also in the waiting area are two people who are on-air before me. One of them, a sociologist, tells me that she is often on the programme to talk about equality issues.

“Are you a serial offender too?” I asked the person sitting with her.

It was perhaps not the most subtle of questions, as it turns out he has spent several years in prison.

When my turn comes, I am ushered into a studio to be greeted by Rony. He reminds me of John Peel, not just in the way he looks – close-cut greying beard and comfy cardigan – his voice too; has the warm gruffness that Peel had and he also shares that favourite uncle demeanour.

Seconds before we go on air, Rony says he wants to start by asking about my life’s turning point. I say it’s probably the moment that I discovered that my great grandfather’s secret family. “Okay, excellent,” he says and moves closer to the microphone as Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain comes towards the end.

“Or the moment when I set off on my trip,” I add.

He nods, his finger raised to indicate that he’s about to speak on-air.

Or the moment I return to Mexico with my grandmother, I want to add. They’re all turning points. You could argue that every day has its pivotal moments.

But by now he is in full flow, talking about how a son of Sheffield (that’s me) had come to be in the middle of Mexico. “Was this your life’s turning point?”

I say it was, and decide not to mention the dozens of others that I have thought of in the last few seconds.

We move on from turning points and I tell the story, Rony interrupting only to drum on the desk in excitement when I get to the part about meeting Tío Arturo for the first time.

The interview over, I head off to Sheffield Live! It’s a community station, the only one I have ever been to with an exclamation mark in its name. It’s also the only interview I have done that has started with the interviewer telling me how weird I am for not drinking tea or coffee.

Another of life’s pivotal moments? I wonder to myself.

It appears not, so I tell my story.

Radio Manchester

2010-03-29T16:03:00.000-07:00

It’s seven thirty in the morning and I am standing on Sheffield train station en route to BBC Radio Manchester. Why is that radio interviews always seem to necessitate getting up really early? Do people not listen to the radio in the afternoon?

The train I board is running an hour late and my carriage is full of people on their way to the airport, looking at their watches anxiously and tutting. I try to sleep.

I arrive at BBC centre on Oxford Road and am taken straight to the waiting area. “Just think of some funny anecdotes,” says the producer, and leaves me with a glass of water and the Wham! song “I’m Your Man” playing on a wall-mounted speaker.

The presenter, Heather Stott, then introduces her studio guests, a wedding dress designer, a marriage counsellor and a woman who advises women how to get out of abusive relationships. How to get married, argue and split up, interspersed with some pop from the eighties.

I am trying to think of which stories to tell, but am too busy listening to the previous guests. I am struck by how cheerful everyone is, especially the woman who advises women in troubled relationships. I had no idea it was possible to be so happy about a subject so grim.

The interviewees walk out of the studio, their chatter just audible over the Trammps’ song Disco Inferno. I look at the notes I was supposed to be making for my amusing anecdotes. All I have written is “Venezuelan brothel. Corpse. Covered in baby poo.”

It will have to do as the presenter, Heather Stott, invites me in to take a seat in front of a microphone. Heather is one of those rare people who looks a great deal more attractive in the flesh than on her publicity photos. She is bright and bubbly, and satisfyingly open-mouthed as I relate the story of my journey in my great grandfather’s footsteps.

Just before we go into the sports news to hear about Rooney returning from groin injury, Heather says, “And we’ll be back in a minute when Robin will tell us about what he got up to in a Venezuelan brothel.”

I wonder how many other daytime radio presenters have gone into a break with that announcement.

The rest of the interview goes okay and Heather gives the book a good plug at the end. She shakes my hand and says she looks forward to reading the book. I like the fact that she doesn’t pretend that she already has.

I meet with an old friend, and when she has to return to work, spend the afternoon touring Manchester Waterstone’s branches, signing copies.

On return to Sheffield I am told that I have two more radio interviews planned for Friday. Yes, in the morning.

Filthy Words

2010-03-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have just done a ‘live test’ for an on-line chat event on April 15th in which I will be attempting to answer questions from members of book clubs from around the country.

I’m not a computer whizz, and I approach this event with a certain amount of nervousness. It’s not the communicating with people from all corners of the nation that worries me, it’s having to rely on my ability to interact with technology. I have always liked the idea of working like Winston Churchill, barking instructions from my bed to a full complement of staff. Alas, The Mango Orchard sales do not yet merit such a workforce, so I have to get out of bed, and be responsible for my own interface with the world.

It was a good idea to have a run-through. It took a full ten minutes, and several frantic e-mails from the moderator, for me to work out that I hadn’t even logged in.

Once that hurdle had been negotiated, it was fairly straight forward... until I noticed that my user name was “Robin B”. I asked if this could be changed, as I thought it made me sound like a Spice Girl. At least, that’s what I had wanted to say, the text that appeared was “CENSORED”.

I couldn’t work what I had said that was so scandalous. The moderator asked me what I had said. I repeated my message and again, the word “CENSORED” appeared on the screen.

To be honest, I felt quite pleased with myself. Once again I had managed to flummox a computer system.

Eventually, they established that ‘spice’ had triggered the censor, because it had the word ‘spic’ in it. They have now updated the system so it will not make the same mistake again, but it has made me wonder what other words it will pick up.

How about bumptious? Or arsenal? Or how about wankel rotary engine?

Log in to http://www.rchatrandom.co.uk/ at 7pm on April 15th to see what we can get away with.

The Northern Tour begins

2010-03-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have just realised that I need to be somewhere else. In a very few minutes I should be at St Pancras to catch my train up north to begin my first promotional tour.

I quickly go through my mails. The first e-mail I notice tells me that Time Out have very kindly done a small write-up about a talk I am to give at West End Lane Books in West Hampstead. The only trouble is that this was cancelled a month ago. On that night I shall now be giving a reading in Sheffield.

A further mail gives me the link to the article that has just appeared in the Sheffield Telegraph: http://bit.ly/cEJjKp. Another, details of the Heather Stott radio show on Radio Manchester on which I am appearing on Monday morning.

There’s another one from my friend Jon, who tells me he has just managed to sell his wardrobe for £127 on eBay. He seems very pleased with himself. It’s good news for me too; the drinks are on him this weekend.

Waterstone's Quarterly and F#cking Postmen!

2010-03-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

Since my move to my new home a week before the launch of the book, I have taken to taking a walk before I start work in the morning. It clears my head and reminds me that there is a world outside these four walls and my computer screen. Thanks to my friends, Ann and James, for whom I am flat sitting, the neighbourhood in which I now find myself at the beginning of each day is more genteel and scenic than I am used to. There are less weapon dogs to dodge, the streets are winding and tree-lined, and if I ever feel the need, it is possible to spend £8.50 on a loaf of bread.

Today, on my morning constitutional, I was trying to compose in my head an article I had been asked to write for Waterstone’s Quarterly. My concentration was broken when I saw a man lumbering towards me who looked like REM’s Michael Stipe after an unhealthy cocktail of growth hormones. He was screaming about “F*cking postmen!” at the top of his voice.

I am never quite sure whether to ignore these people, or to stare them down; show them that I’m not scared. I decided to stare him down. I looked at him and found myself thinking of a cartoon character with spirals turning in its eyes.

His body posture changed instantly. From being a snarling ball of rage, he visibly relaxed. “I had a friend who was knocked down by a dustcart once,” he said, mildly. He seemed to have forgotten about the problem he had postmen.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh, he’s not dead, but I think he has a headache.”
I nodded, and wondered if this person who was knocked down by a dustcart was him.

He followed me round the block, reeling off a stream of non sequiturs about the origins of romance and why he didn’t like Kilburn. He didn’t seem to notice that I was contributing little to the conversation. At one point he grabbed my arm. His hand wrapped around my bicep and his grip was fierce. Not a person to get on the wrong side of.

We arrived at my front door and I was worried he would invite himself in, but he became distracted by the number on my front door. “I don’t like the number 28,” he said sadly. “It’s wrong.”

I’m not sure that this encounter inspired me, but I wrote the article for Waterstone’s very quickly. Perhaps I wanted to finish it before lunch, in case I bumped into my strange neighbour next time I ventured outside.

You can see the article now on http://www.wbqonline.com/feature.do?featureid=509

Available in Sheffield for only £2

2010-03-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have been receiving calls all day about the new window display dedicated to The Mango Orchard in the Waterstone’s branch in Orchard Square, Sheffield, where I am to do a reading next week.

The display says that you can “meet me” for £2 (redeemable against the cost of the book). Considering the prices to meet Geoff Hoon, Harriet Harman or Stephen Byers, it does seem a veritable snip.

It has been a Sheffield day. Most of the morning was spent in interviews with the Sheffield papers, The Star and The Telegraph, which should publish their articles at the end of this week.

The day after the party

2010-03-19T04:36:00.001-07:00

It’s the day after The Mango Orchard launch party. My head is aching in places that only tequila can reach. It’s not ideal timing, but I have to get up to go to a friend’s birthday bash in the Lord Nelson, a laid-back gastro pub somewhere near Camden, but nowhere near any public transport links.

I decide to get out of bed and walk in the bright sunshine, walk myself out of a hangover. I love London in the sun. The man at the fruit stall is whistling, women with enormous sunglasses drive Jeep convertibles, hemp bags of groceries and daffodils in the passenger seat. I sit in the sun outside a coffee shop, luxuriating in the warmth on my face. I turn over and realise I am still in bed.

The phone rings but I ignore it. Okay, okay, I’m on my way. I jump in the shower and I walk a while but realise I’m never going to make it for the end of the meal, let alone the beginning, so I hail a black cab.

I hurriedly write my friend’s birthday card outside the pub, leaning on a table where a woman is smoking roll-ups, sitting with an implausibly fluffy rabbit, and rush in.

I sup a glass of water, wincing at the clatter of cutlery and crockery, until my friend, whose birthday it is, opens a bottle of champagne. The phone rings as I’m handed a glass. I ignore it again and allow my hangover to fizz and then fade away.

It’s several hours later and I arrive home. Music or telly? I still haven’t decided when the phone rings again. This time I answer. It’s Juanita. With timing that is entirely consistent with her character, she has flown into the country to come to the party a full twenty four hours late.

The Launch Party

2010-03-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

There’s a Mexican phrase: No hay nada que no se puede arreglar con tequila – There isn’t anything you can’t fix with tequila.

For the launch party of The Mango Orchard, I take this advice to heart and order several gallons of the stuff. And just in case the tequila doesn’t do the trick, there are cases of wine and several hundred bottles of Corona beer, kindly obtained by the Mexican Embassy.

Whether or not it’s the tequila that does the fixing I don’t know, but all seems to go swimmingly. The night passes a blur of flashbulbs, handshakes and hugs in front of my eyes. As well as publishing and media people, there are friends and family from all over the world, some of whom I haven’t seen for the best part of twenty years.

The speeches go well, despite my reservation about looking a bit like a dictator, speaking from a flag-dressed balcony. Shortly afterwards, arriving out of nowhere, I hear the familiar sounds of a Mariachi band. They had been organised secretly by some of my friends. It’s a touching gesture.

My only real fear before the party was having sudden amnesia when signing books.
“Who would you like me to dedicate the book to?”
“To me.”
“How are you spelling that?”

All goes well however, until I see Trevor, my publisher, approach with a tousle-haired chap clutching a copy of my book. Oh crickey, who’s that? Is he an old school friend I’ve erased from my memory? Is he a relative I failed to include in the book? Is he that bloke who helped me in the National Archive, whom I forgot to thank in the acknowledgments? I’m stumped.

Trevor cuts through the crowd. “This is Steve,” he says when he reaches me.
I still have absolutely no idea who he is but hope that my lack of recognition goes unnoticed. “Help yourself to a drink,” I say as I hand the signed book back to him.

Trevor finds my discomfort amusing. “I found him outside,” he says, when Steve has disappeared. “He was just walking by. I told him about the book, so he came in to buy it.”

Steve, whoever you are, I hope you enjoy the book. And if for any strange reason you don’t, have a tequila.

Publication Day

2010-03-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

It’s publication day, mails are arriving in my inbox and my mobile is beeping constantly. How do I feel? Everyone wants to know.

It’s the moment I have dreamed of for years and yet none of it feels real – The Mango Orchard, finally is published. I decide it will feel more believable when I see the book in situ and walk to my local Waterstone’s to see the book displayed in pride of place at the front of store.

It’s not there.

I check upstairs in the travel section. It’s not there either. I don’t want to make a scene, but having spent five years writing the thing, and having secured a much-prized promotional deal with Waterstone’s, I can’t help thinking that at least making the book physically possible for people to buy would be a good start.

A shop finally assistant locates the books in a sealed box at the back of the store. He opens the box and hands them to me. I explain that I was hoping they would sell the books to someone else...

Later in the day, a friend calls me to tell me she had just seen the book on the tables at the front of the shop. She quickly bought a copy, before they sold out.

Appearing on Radio 4

2010-02-27T14:53:00.000-08:00

It’s Saturday morning and I wake before dawn. It’s only my second morning in my new flat and I walk into the living room to look out of the window at the still unfamiliar sights. The sky is still a dirty amber and the lights still shining brightly on the London Eye and BT Tower.

I’ve rarely been up this early before; I’m tempted to say that the view is worth getting up for, but that’s not quite true. The sight of a still, quiet London glowing in the half-light is most certainly beautiful, but not as beautiful as a deep and restful sleep. I’m only up because I have a radio interview to go to.

The marvellous Emma, the publicity guru at my publishers, phoned me when I was in the middle of moving flat last week to tell me I had been booked to appear on Excess Baggage on Radio 4, the daddy of all travel programmes. It’s live at 10.00.

I have always assumed that guests would need to be there hours before, and would sit in the green room like Roman noblemen feasting on enormous bowls of fruit while production assistants run around after them to satisfy their every whim. This is why I am up so early. I want my bowl of fruit.

It’s 9.45, just fifteen minutes before we’re on air and I am standing in the BBC canteen with the other two guest, Chloe Aridjis, who’s promoting A Book of Clouds, and Mark Carwardine, a well-renowned zoologist . We’re sipping ice cold water in plastic cups. There’s no fruit. Not even any biscuits.

Ten minutes before the programme goes on air, we are shown into the studio. John McCarthy, wearing a very fetching floral shirt, greets us warmly and invites us to sit round a carpet-topped table. It has four microphones sticking out of a hole in the middle where there are multi-coloured cables and a computer keyboard. I am handed another glass of water and I can’t help wondering what would happen if I accidently dropped it. Would sparks fly? Would Radio 4 go off the air?

I’m gripping my water so tightly that I barely notice a green light go on. John begins his very smooth opening. He then pauses as they play a recording of a TV programme Mark made about whale-watching with Stephen Fry. I realise this was a programme I saw, though I don’t say anything as I’m not sure my microphone is switched off.

John’s brilliance is that he lulls you into thinking you’re just having a chat, which we are, I suppose, it’s just that we have a million or so people listening. I all but forget my nerves, so much so that I hear a voice inside my head say “Go on, say ‘titty turd’”.

Gosh, I hope that thought wasn’t out loud. John is looking at me, millions are listening. He’s asked me a question. What was it again, something about why I set out in the footsteps of my great grandfather?

I clear my throat and begin to talk, and try to keep the words ‘titty turd’ away from my mouth. (Where on earth did they come from anyway? Who the hell says titty turd?) John nods encouragingly and asks another question and I tell the story about Wilson, the loon who pulled a gun on me during the journey from Veracruz to Mexico City. The version in the book has a fair number of words a lot more offensive than titty or turd, but judging from the smile on John’s face, I think I’ve managed to avoid them.

John directs some questions to Chloe and then more to me and as a final question asks if we intend to go back to Mexico. We all say we do and it’s the end of the programme.

We have a brief chat as we put on our coats and within ten minutes I am in a car heading home. For a bowl of fruit.

Intrepid Travel in Kensington

2010-02-22T02:47:00.000-08:00

Billy Connolly once said that there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. He’s right, up to a point. Personally I find weather inappropriate if it’s so cold that it I’m forced to wear so many layers my arms stick out at ninety degrees from my body like a Teletubby.

I’ve never really been one for the cold weather; I’ve never seen the point in it. This doesn’t mean I am one of the head-in-the-sand climate change deniers. I think that having both poles covered in ice is a good idea, I just don’t want it to be North Pole-like anywhere near me.

I guess I’m finding the icy conditions that much more difficult to take this morning after having spent the weekend at the Travellers’ Tales Festival at The Royal Geographical Society. There, I talked with some of the world’s best travel writers and photographers about spectacular corners of the planet – almost all of them warmer than London this February.

I was there to make a presentation on The Mango Orchard. The talk seemed to go well. The audience was appreciative and asked good questions. Afterwards, I had a book signing session in Stanfords, and pleasingly, the book sold out.

Then I set out once more into the rigours of Kensington arctic winter.

Ad-lib lines, well rehearsed.

2010-02-18T03:59:00.000-08:00

In a few minutes I go into town to record my first TV interview to promote The Mango Orchard.

In my past life, when I worked in children’s television, I appeared on TV a few times, the last time being on a national Romanian channel, alongside a seven foot purple cat and an equally tall turquoise cartoon character called The Tick. The interview was most notable for the fact that the TV lights were very hot for the poor students in the character costumes. As I gamely tried to promote a kids concert, a sweat patch appeared around The Tick’s crotch, giving the millions of Romanian children watching the impression that their super-hero had bladder control issues.

Anyway, this time, I’m not promoting sweating cartoon characters and the interview will, I hope, be in English.

Ever helpful, my friends from my writing group have challenged me to include certain words into my interview. Just in case it’s not stressful enough to appear casual as I communicate a story that it took me five years to write, they want me to incorporate the words wobble, throbbing, velociraptor, boobies and Islets of Langerhans.

Tune in to the Holiday Show on Travel Channel at 4pm and 8pm this Friday, Saturday and Sunday and see how I get on.

Another Judgement Passed

2010-02-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Just got had a new review in, this time from Jason Webster, a highly celebrated author and journalist. Words taken at random from his review: "charming", "magical" and "...skeletons".

It all makes sense when you read it!

Pre-publishing Nerves

2010-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I read an interview with Sebastian Faulks in which he discussed his “pre-publishing nerves” prior to the launch of A Week in December. I couldn’t understand how someone with his body of work and track record of success could be apprehensive about a new book coming out.

Now I am less than five weeks away from The Mango Orchard’s appearance in the bookshops, I understand what Sebastian (if I can presume to be on first name terms – we have the same publisher after all) meant, and I don’t have his reputation to fall back on.

Last week I received my first review. Having spent every other week for a couple of years being exposed to the rigorous assessment of my writing group, and then by my agent and publisher, I felt that I was inured to criticism. But with the arrival of the review in my in-box, I realised that while the incisive Jo-Jo, eagle-eyed grammar queen Caroline, Scrabble-session Charlotte and “that’s bollocks” Justin of my writing group might offer some unwelcome truths about my draft chapters, nothing would be as wounding as a mauling by a renowned reviewer of the finished book.

The review was written by the noted biographer and journalist, Andrew Lycett, and it was generous. I scanned the screen, bracing myself for a harsh assessment. Instead of rubbishing the book, he offered phrases such as “very exciting” and “cleverly constructed”.

Apart from the reviews, more of which are expected soon, there’s the launch party to plan.

I love going to parties but I’ve never enjoyed any of my own. The first I ever had was for my third birthday. It didn’t go well. My friend Patrick Edwards lost a tooth in a toffee apple incident and I was sent to my room for sneaking away from a game of pass-the-parcel to eat my entire birthday cake.

I must look up Sebastian’s interview again and see if he offered any crumbs of comfort.

Reading in Bookshops

2010-01-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to my writing group. We meet every other week in a bookshop in Kings Cross, one of the few that doesn’t display warnings about the “Adult-themed material” behind their frosted glass doors. Our bookshop, despite not being a porn emporium is hardly a warm and cosy place. It has brown carpet tiles, speckled with flattened chewing gum, its few chairs are moulded plastic and even in the height of summer, it is always freezing cold.

And you’re unlikely to find many books here that you’ll want to curl up with in front of the fire. A random selection: “The House that Crack Built”, “Marshmallows I have Loved” and “Amputee Sex”.

It was here, about three years ago, I first read aloud a section of The Mango Orchard, or Casa Familiar, as I think it was called then. It was in a workshop run by Anne Aylor. Apart from Anne and myself, there were fifteen or twenty other writers. I was terrified. Not only was it the first time that I had read anything from the book to anyone else, it was the first time that I had read anything in public since I was dragooned into reading a poem about an octopus called Henry at school assembly when I was eleven.

I’m not a very good reader. Being dyslexic doesn’t help. I know what the words are, and what they mean, I just tend to read them in the wrong order. So when I began the passage I had brought along to Anne’s group, all I saw was a mass of ink. I noticed the girl next to me yawn, and then again. When I finished, a few people shifted uneasily in their chairs as they tried to think of something nice to say. I think someone said they liked my shoes.

Anyway, back to last night. I was reading not for people to comment on the text – it’s a bit too late for that, the book’s already at the printers – but to practice for the book readings I have coming up, including the one at the Royal Geographical Society . I was about to begin when a girl in a red woollen hat opened the door and marched towards us, “Hello, I’m Jessica!” she announced, full of enthusiasm. We all looked at each other. We had no idea who she was, but it seemed cruel to ask when she so obviously thought she was expected.
A second later, another couple came in carrying a cloth bags with leaflets sticking out of the top. “Climate change meeting?”

Someone remembered that there was a meeting downstairs. Jessica looked relieved. The climate change people continued to traipse in, leaving the door ajar, oblivious to the irony of how they were changing our own personal climate. A few of them stopped for a while to listen to me read. They were distracting, but at least it suggests that my reading is improving.

Price war!

2010-01-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

It’s six weeks until publication date and there already seems to be a price war to try and snag pre-orders of The Mango Orchard.

Amazon are offering the book at £9.09 - a mere snip! And just announced, Rbooks are offering a 30% discount. Go via the Book Clubs page on my website and add the promotional code “mangoorchard”. If you order over 10 copies you get postage and packaging for free!

Pretentious Opening Lines

2010-01-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

I have often thought that having obscure quotes on the opening pages of a book was the height of pretentiousness. Quotes in French, quotes in Latin, quotes from Chinese proverbs about how pebbles are really bigger than mountains or quotes attributed to mythical figures from the twelfth century about the wisdom of hairy-arsed shepherds. If you haven’t managed to communicate all you wanted to in the 90,000 words of the book, will an oracular pronouncement by someone long deceased really make up for it?

But then I wrote a book myself. To be honest, before I even wrote a word of The Mango Orchard, I already knew the quote I wanted on the opening page of the book:

We shall not cease from exploration

And in the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

It’s from Little Gidding by T S Eliot. I showed it to Trevor, my publisher. He loved it, we just need to get it cleared, he said. The TS Eliot estate, perhaps in an attempt to reduce pretentious quotes at the beginning of books, said no.

We asked again, nicely. They didn’t answer. Then they said no. Buggers.

So I don’t have this quote at the beginning of The Mango Orchard, but I have another. It’s unpretentious and apt. You’ll have to read the book to see what it is.

Not a girl called Bill

2009-11-19T09:03:00.000-08:00

After a third rush across town at the behest of my heavily pregnant sister, who has made several claims to be about to be in the throes of labour, she finally has given birth. Despite my niece telling me, most confidently, that the baby would be a girl called Fermalicia, or Bill, the baby turns out to be a boy, called Thomas.

That’s five children my brother and sister have produced in the time it’s taken me to turn out a book.

Famous People

2009-11-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

I get a call from Trevor, my publisher, this morning. He invites me into the office so I can pick up the proof copies and discuss to whom we should send them.

I’d imagined the proofs to be ring-bound A4 folders, like the ones I used to use in my past corporate life when I wanted to divert attention from the fact that there was no substance to a presentation I was making.

As Trevor guides me to a leather sofa in Preface’s schmoozing room, he hands me a paperback book, only this one has a familiar cover: The Mango Orchard. It’s not quite the finished article, a point conceded by the disclaimer at the bottom of the front cover: “Uncorrected proof. Not for resale.” The opening pages are blank, they have lines of text that say “Maps to come” and “dedication to come”. But that, and a few typographical errors aside, here it is. My book.

The purpose of having these proof copies is to ‘create a buzz’. We want to send them to notable people – writers, broadcasters and journalists – in the hope that they will read it and say how life-changingly brilliant the book is. Trevor already has a Who’s Who type list of people who I can’t help thinking will be far too busy to look at my book. I rack my brain for any famous people I could add to the list. I once met Paul McCartney at a party and asked for his autograph. Probably not. I used to live next door-but-three to Sebastian Coe (me and my friend Patrick Edwards used to spit in his drive – not because we didn’t like him, we had just learned how to spit and that’s kind of important when you’re three). No, not Seb either. Then I remember my neighbour Ian had given me the address of a friend of his, both a famous actress and author. Trevor claps his hands together “Perfect!” he says.

I arrive home and write her a letter. Because of the postal strikes, and because it is a nice day, I decide to deliver the proof copy to her house myself. I cycle across North London and manage to track down her house. I am disappointed. This beautiful, classy woman who has worked with the Hollywood elite lives in what looks like a squat. The house number is written on the gate post in magic marker, there are no curtains and the only furniture I can see is a guitar. The paint is peeling off the house walls and the garden fence has been completely covered by car hubcaps. I check the address I had written on the envelope. It’s right: No. 25. I force the envelope through the letter box and cycle home.

Back at my desk, I begin to write this blog. I look at the post-it note with the address of the famous actress and author written on it and I wonder how I’m going to tell my neighbour that his friend lives in a house that looks like the set for Withnail and I. No.23. No. 23??

I had delivered the proof to the famous actress and author’s neighbour. Funnily enough, as a cycled away, I remember thinking what a nice house No.23 was.

God Bless Waterstones

2009-10-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

I arrive home this morning feeling a bit crumpled.

I had been out with my friend Om last night, and were making good in-roads into a bottle of wine, when I was called by Emma, my sister. Emma is what you might term VERY pregnant and consequently, I have been on standby to go and look after her daughter when she goes into hospital to have the baby.

“I think I’m in labour,” she said.

I rushed across town and got to her house just in time for her contractions to stop. Just in case they started again, I slept on the sofa.

Hence me arriving home this morning feeling a bit crumpled.

I flick on my computer and see a mail from Trevor, my publisher. Good news, he says, “March 2010: The Mango Orchard to be promoted front of store in all Waterstones stores with a 3 for 2 offer.”

I’ve always liked those Waterstones people!

My Pride and Joy

2009-09-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

It’s the crack of morning, barely gone ten, when the intercom buzzer sounds. I walk the four yards from my bedroom to answer it, but whoever it was has gone. I forget about it until later that day when I find a card from the Post Office on my doormat. “Sorry you weren’t in!” it says cheerily. It should of course read, “We couldn’t be arsed to wait five seconds for you to answer your door and so we have taken your package away again. Just to annoy you.”

I wander down to the sorting office. It has scribbled notes pinned to the wall, warning customers that threatening behaviour to staff will not be tolerated. After I have been waiting for half an hour, and begun to wonder if the sorting office had considered why customers got so aggrieved that they felt the need to make threats, I reach the front of the queue.

I slide my ID across the counter and, without undue haste, am handed a thick, brown envelope. I recognise the handwriting as my publisher, Trevor's and realise what the envelope contains.

I rush home to open it: the manuscript proof of The Mango Orchard, all 273 pages of it. I feel like a father, handed his newly born child for the first time. I flick through the pages, checking its fingers and toes are all there. They are. It’s beautiful.

Grammar Nazi

2009-08-15T03:35:00.000-07:00

Editing, I discovered a long time ago, is, as the cliché goes, a bit like painting the Forth Bridge. It’s a process that is never done. One of the chapters in the book went through over 50 drafts. And even after I have been through all of Trevor’s comments, there are still several more to go.

I receive a mail from Trevor telling me that the copy editor will get in touch. The copy editor is the person who checks for inconsistencies, and poor sentence construction. A friend in my writing group has always referred to copy editors as ‘Grammar Nazis’. I again brace myself for trench warfare, fighting to keep the book as it is, paragraph by paragraph.

The Grammar Nazi turns out to be a charming chap called Hugh. He asks me some very reasonable questions and makes very few changes. He even tells me how much he enjoyed the book.

Que bonito!

2009-07-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

A few days after I return from Spain, my Godson and Mexican cousin, Javi, turns up in London for the start of his European tour. When he was last in England, he was 15 and dependent on me to organise his time. Javi is now in his last year at university and somehow seems to have friends all over Europe and to know more people in London than me. I am no longer needed to shepherd him around town. In fact, I soon realise that pretty much the only time I get to see him is when I step over him and assorted amigos (and amigas) on the living room floor on my way to the kitchen in the morning.

The third day he is here is my birthday. He buys me a cake. Then he eats it. He leaves me a note to tell me how good it was.

The next day, I take Javi to see my brother, who is a photographer and has kindly agreed to take the publicity shots for my book. My brother, Andrew, spent his youth living in flats in the centre of London that could, with a lick of paint, have passed for crack dens. He now lives in suburban Hertfordshire, but to be honest, I prefer the crack dens. His present house, which at least has the virtue of being temporary, is about five centimetres from the east coast train line. Conversations have to pause for trains to pass, and crockery to stop rattling.

Even though I can barely hear him, it is good to see Andrew, Charlotte and their young family. They are the most infectiously cheerful people I know. Trevor, my publisher, told me any photos would be fine as long as I wasn’t grinning. Andrew takes over a hundred shots. I am grinning on most of them.

Javi watches the photo shoot for a while, and chips in with the occasional sarcastic “Que bonito!” He then goes to the kitchen and, unable to wait until supper, eats an entire pack of chocolate biscuits, which Andrew had explained he’d bought as a present for Charlotte, who is seven months pregnant. But because of the trains, Javi hadn’t heard him.

The edit

2009-06-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

Of the many fantasies (which I can admit to) that sustained me during the years of writing The Mango Orchard, one of the most vivid was the one about marking up the final manuscript in the sun, the swimming pool water lapping gently at my feet.

A few days after meeting with Trevor in the Random House offices, this dream is realised when I am invited by my sister, Emma, her boyfriend, Mark, and their daughter, my niece, Sophie, to join them on holiday. They journey in style, from St Pancras, through France and northern and central Spain in a first class train compartment, and arrive in Andalucía relaxed, already in a holiday mood. I follow a few days later on a cheap yet distinctly unpleasant Irish airline.

I establish myself in a sun lounger next to the pool, and in between periodic inquiries from Sophie about why I am spending so long scribbling into a green folder with yellow Post-it notes sticking out of it, I begin to work through Trevor’s comments.

The comments are, as he had said, not as bad as they look. He has deleted superfluous words, and every now and then, circled a sentence or paragraph and written “Do better” next to it. I cross out the superfluous words and try to make the circled paragraphs less deserving of his comments.

There is just one chapter that Trevor thinks needs cutting down. It’s towards the end of the book, about my journey home across the States, and has long been one of my favourites. During that stretch of the trip the stark contrast of being in America after months in Mexico helped to see it all in perspective for the first time, and yet I was still in a foreign land; still a long way from home. I had explained this to Trevor. He was sympathetic but maintained that I could take out several pages and still convey that emotion.

Eventually I realise the real reason I don't want to cut the passage is because of the months I spent researching and drafting. I struggle with the decision for several days. Then I cross out 1,500 words and open a bottle of Albariño.

Going in to Random House

2009-06-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

It’s been over five years since I’ve had a proper full time job and have had to get up in the morning, make myself look passably presentable and travel to an office full of busy-looking people. Thankfully, Trevor, my publisher, is accustomed to working with morning-shy writers and doesn’t ask me to get up too early. Our meeting, at Random House’s swanky Art Deco offices in Pimlico, is arranged for 12.45.

Before Trevor arrives, I am invited on to the executive floor and introduced to the CEO of Random House, the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year and recently ennobled Gail Rebuck. When she sees me Dame Rebuck throws her arms around me, plants a kiss on each cheek, tells me that The Mango Orchard is the best book she has ever read, and is the most important signing in Random House’s history. Okay, not really. She greets me politely, asks some intelligent questions about the book and gets on with her day.

Trevor bowls up with a cloth Preface Publishing bag in which he carries my manuscript, covered in yellow Post-it notes, poking out of the top. My heart sinks. I know from having talked to other writers that the edit can be a painful process. It’s a truly gruesome thought to have to rewrite chapters that it took me years to write in the first place, chapters which now feel like my own children: I raised them, made them grow, made them what they are. We suffered and survived the writing process together. I’m aware of the advice given to writers about learning to murder your darlings. It’s not a prospect I relish.

Trevor obviously senses my concern and lays a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says. “Lunch?”

He takes me down to the Random House canteen in the basement. It’s unlike any staff canteen I have ever seen. There are sandwiches – everything from pre-packed tuna and sweet corn to oven fresh ciabattas with goats’ cheese and an olive drizzle – salads, roasts and a mouth-watering selection of cakes and puddings. Book editing is obviously hungry-making work. At the entrance are book displays of the latest releases. Staff can help themselves. Trevor picks up a copy of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and passes it to me. “It’s a good book,” he says, “And besides, it’s got mango in the title.”

After lunch, having introduced me to the marketing and publicity people, we find a meeting room, opposite an office decked out like a stately home study - a giant oak desk by the window and an antique French dresser leaning against the far wall.

Trevor pulls out the manuscript and we go through his comments. Annoyingly, I agree with nearly all of them.

Meeting my publisher: an arranged marriage

2009-03-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

A month after Oli phoned me to say Preface had offered a deal for The Mango Orchard, he calls me again to say the deal is agreed, and that Trevor, my publisher, has invited us for a drink at his club to celebrate. “You can tell your friends and family about it now,” he says.

I don’t tell him that I did that a month ago and am already receiving daily e-mails from friends and members of the Mexican family, wanting to know why the book isn’t already in the shops.

I meet Oli en route to the club and he leads me to an unmarked black door off a busy street in the heart of Soho. I follow him up the uncarpeted stairs to what looks like a toilet. “Sorry,” says Oli, realising that he has led me into a toilet, and tries the next door along the corridor.

The club reminds me of a sixth form common room, albeit one with more affluent looking clientele, and a much more impressive wine list. The furniture smacks of house clearance, the table cloths are patterned plastic, yet the coats hanging on the hat stand are of the most fashionable brands. This is Soho, after all. Parading in between the tables is a man who I’m pretty sure was in a prominent 90s dance act. He is wearing a velvet waistcoat, purple shades and is swinging a cane. No one pays him any attention. He looks mildly crest-fallen and returns to the bar and orders a brandy.

It strikes me that meeting your publisher for the first time is a bit like meeting your future spouse after your parents have arranged the marriage; the dowry’s been paid, it’s a done deal, so you just hope you get along.

Trevor, I realise as soon as he walks in, is someone with whom it would be very difficult not to get on. He reminds me a bit of a young Charlie Higson, and is garrulous and funny. He greets me with the enthusiasm of someone meeting a long lost Mexican cousin and tells me how much he loves The Mango Orchard. He goes on to say that he would like me to write more books and tells me that he might be able to offer me a further advance. How can I not get on with someone like that?

Getting the book deal

2009-02-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

It is almost five years to the day since I began work on The Mango Orchard, when I get a call from Oli, my agent. “We’ve got a deal,” he tells me.

There’s probably not a day gone by in those five years when I have not fantasized about this moment. I’ve imagined my primeval cry of triumph and a night of celebrations, interrupted only by texts from Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Booker Prize committee.

“Great,” I say, and after asking a few obvious questions, I hang up.

It’s quite the most exciting news I have received in my life; vindication for those lonely years spent in archives and libraries, and I am standing in the middle of my sitting room, unsure what to do. I sit down and finish my lunch.