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Last week I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen for 35 years and as Jane was visiting Leicester from New Zealand, I felt it was only appropriate to take her to lunch where we could enjoy a traditional English dish - fish and chips! We both ordered a child’s portion.
On the next table were two couples, chatting happily away when one of the women, sitting with her back to me, turned around and looked at me. Now, this is not particularly unusual, especially locally. I just smiled.
I then chuckled to myself because soon our delicious lunch would be delivered and my reputation of being ‘the low-fat diet guru’ was going to be put into serious doubt!
When the chef served us at our table, I commented (as loudly as I could in the hope that our neighbours would hear) that this CHILD’S serving was still a good portion! He then, helpfully, gesticulated how huge the size of a ‘normal’ serving would have been, had we ordered it. We enjoyed every mouthful of this perfectly presented lunch and began recollecting our memories of all those years ago when we first met on one of my book tours.
 I went on my first overseas book tour to promote my Hip and Thigh Diet in 1988 to Australia and New Zealand. Whilst it was tremendously exciting, I had never travelled so far away from home before so I asked the publishers if hubby Mike could accompany me. They agreed providing I was prepared to downgrade our seats on the flights from Club Class to Economy. And what an adventure it turned out to be. (All of this is detailed in my autobiography.)
Mike and I had met five years previously and married in 1986. Money was really tight, despite the book topping the charts in the UK since it was published in January 1988. The tour was to be in August but even though it was a bestseller, royalties are not paid to authors until 10 months after publication.
I can remember going shopping for clothes for both of us realising we needed to ’look the part’. We needed outfits that looked stylish yet were inexpensive, and at the time the fashion retailer C&A – sadly no longer with us - provided the perfect solution. Then, off we went on an adventure of a lifetime. First stop Singapore for three days then onto Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne…and then on to New Zealand. Staying in top hotels and being wined and dined by our various hosts in the finest restaurants. It was like another world to us. The whole trip took three weeks and during that time we took 11 flights, stayed in 9 hotels, and I did 14 press and 28 radio interviews, 2 national and 2 regional TV appearances, as well as 19 book signings and 2 literary lunches! It really was like a dream.
Further tours followed to South Africa, Canada and the USA. Crazy times indeed and the book became a No. 1 bestseller in all of those countries except the States.
The following year, the publishers wanted me to do it all over again to promote my Complete Hip & Thigh Diet, the follow-up book, but this time I went alone. That was when I met Jane. Jane greeted me as my host when I arrived in New Zealand in 1989 and we hit it off immediately and had a lot of fun during that week.
Back to the present day, as we embraced at seeing each other after so long, I was amazed at how young Jane looked and I blurted out – ‘Goodness! You must have been 10 when last we met!’ Apparently, in fact, she was only 21 and was the Publicity and Promotional Manager for the publishing house at the time. But what made the trip so memorable was the fact that we ‘clicked’ immediately and I remember we laughed so much as we travelled to various key cities in the north and south islands of New Zealand!
Now in her late 50s, and with two grown-up children back home, Jane wanted to retrace and remember her childhood years spent in England. Jane is in fact the great-granddaughter of no less than H. G. Wells! I only learned this relatively recently when she contacted me when planning her trip. She intended to visit the various homes where H.G. had lived – several places in London and Woking, as well as her grandmother’s house in Leicestershire - her grandmother being H G Wells’ daughter Anna Jane, where she stayed on occasions with her father. Coincidentally, her grandmother had lived quite close to where we live now. There were also other important memorable locations in the UK that were earmarked for a visit.
So, together with my wheelchair, (following my foot op.), we drove around the various areas that she vaguely remembered as a child. It was a pure delight and we picked up on all the fun and friendship we enjoyed so much from over three decades earlier. It was so wonderful that Jane had made contact with me again and I listened in awe of the amazing ups and downs of her life including being a property developer with her ex-husband to then going on to gain a Master’s degree in psychology and counselling, and now with a thriving psychotherapy and counselling practice in the present day.
Apart from all that she had achieved in her life, what I truly admired was that she had decided to take two months out of her busy life and from her counselling practice to travel to no less than eight countries. Unsurprisingly, this had taken months of planning to design such a complicated schedule! With just one large suitcase containing clothes to accommodate all the various climates she would encounter – hot and cold – she set off a couple of weeks ago! What an incredible thing to do. I am so full of admiration for anyone to take on such an adventure on their own. And isn’t it funny how little things impress us… her NZ satnav on her phone was infinitely better at giving directions in Leicestershire than any device I have experienced in the UK!
After a wonderful evening together, we said our farewells and off she went towards her next destination. Wonderful. More happy memories to treasure and now, thanks to modern technology, we can keep in touch in the future. I look forward to it immensely.
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P.s. After writing a draft of this piece I sent a copy to Jane for fact-checking. In her note back she wrote: ‘Thanks so much for your admiration… but I’m a firm believer in believing you can do it, and in jumping off deep ends to face into hard things.’ That says it all, doesn’t it!
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Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography.
