Heavy traffic last night.
But my screenwriting chauffeur Miran got me to the church on time.
The Priory Church of the Order of St John.
We enjoyed a Shelter-sponsored literary event in a historic venue in Clerkenwell, East London.
And were given a quick unofficial tour of the astonishing crypt, which dates from 1040 AD.
A big crowd of 20-something women, with some boyfriends, saw seven performers,each introduced by compere Shane Solanki, who politely pleaded with us to text £3 text donations to Shelter
I’d never seen Scot John Niven before and really enjoyed his passionate craziness.
Orlando Weeks, former frontman of The Maccabees, read and sang from his funny-sad children’s story The Gritterman, accompanied by a young lady on piano.
Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina told us that “Freedom does not exist unless you fight for it every day.”
Having served time in a penal colony in Putin’s Russia, Maria refused to be broken by brutality or solitary confinement: “If you stop being surprised by such things, you will be turning your back and bending over and offering them your backside.”
Laura Dockrill admitted, “I didn’t mean to be a children’s writer, it was an accident, second best accident of my life – I’m actually pregnant.”(Cheers)
It was very nice to meet comic novelist David Nicholls, one of my favourite British writers, alongside Evelyn Waugh, P.G. Wodehouse and Martin Amis.
David revisited the affectionately jokey letter that Dexter writes to Emma from India, saying he will wire her the cash for a plane ticket and meet her at the Taj Mahal.
This hilarious book, One Day, published in 2009, will still be read 50 years from now.
Publishers had donated books by each author and there were long queues for signed copies at the interval and all that cash goes to help the 125,000 homeless people in the UK.
125,000 is a number that shocked me, as I grew up in a town of 60,000 (Stevenage) and more than twice that number of people are homeless in my country today.
When I got home I told Mrs Palmer, “I’m gonna take you there.The crypt is incredible,I felt guilty being there without you.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Jan.” I’ve been to lots of things without you.”
“I know but this was your kind of place.”