“The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt,” quipped the late John Mortimer QC. The best-selling author could afford to joke, but Mortimer had a point, and even before my book “We Do!” came out in 2019, I knew I wouldn’t be giving up the day job any time soon…

Today, however, I got a rather nice surprise when an email came in from the ALCS, or to give them their full title, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. They collect money for authors from all over the world, not on sales of their books, but for ‘secondary uses’ of their work, like library lending.

It’s lovely to know that people aren’t just buying “We Do!” but borrowing it too. I hope they find it as useful as Sarah did. She sent me this photo of her copy about a month after her wedding to Richard, and it still makes me smile today!