'Sean Connery was gorgeous. I necked him': JILLY COOPER

It's a gloriously sunny day in the Cotswolds. Cow parsley bursts from every hedgerow, bunches of wisteria hang from Rich Tea-coloured manor houses, horses flick their tails in the fields and Range Rovers roar along the narrow roads. It's very much the sort of day Jilly Cooper would describe in her books. As I pull up to a particularly beautiful 14th-century manor house, discreetly tucked at the end of a lane, I half expect to see a naked man hitting balls on a tennis court.

No naked man. But there's the dame, standing in her driveway, a little stooped and using a stick, but definitely Jilly Cooper: thick mane of hair, twinkly blue eyes, jersey with a dog on it. 'Hello, darling,' she says, 'come in.'

I've never met Cooper, although I sent her a case of Pol Roger after my first novel came out because she gave me a quote for its cover. We last spoke on the phone a few months ago when I called to congratulate her on the enormous success of , the Disney+ adaptation of her 1988 novel, the one that features the naked tennis.