A book that will never be published. I’m not a good writer, and I write to entertain myself. But somebody asked if Harry, from Perfectly Hard and Glamorous, is based on a real person, and I had to come clean.

He is called Harry, but where does his character came from? He is a combination of lots of people I’ve known, but he is also me.

The stories he tells are a lot of the things that happened to me. And underneath that rough image, there is a sensitivity that is really based on the quiet shy boy I once was and probably still am.

This idiosyncrasy surfaces in Harry at an early age and reveals a jealousy when he can’t have the things he wants. As I’ve got older, this unfortunate part of my psyche sometimes gets too much to bear, and on occasions has resulted in a destructive outcome. This failing is also part of Harry’s anima and he eventually turns his back on those people he cares about most.

I’ve never been violent or dishonest but sometimes wished I had. It just wasn’t part of my upbringing. And so, Harry makes up for it, as do Andy and Jack, with their brutal style of living. But Harry is distinctive from the rest.

In one of the chapters somebody says that if there were three bad boys then Harry is the best of the bunch. He has a conscience, but once that’s out of the way, anything can happen.

There is a tendency for people to make assumptions about Andy, Jack and Harry.

They see themselves in all three boys and even in some of the peripheral characters. But I stayed clear of real names and have deliberately mixed up their personalities to disguise the obvious. And the decades have allowed me to introduce people to one another when in reality they’ve never met.

There is another part to this adventure and it involves the plot line.

In between writing there is a need to earn money. This involves spending hours stood doing nothing, and hours can pass without anything to do. This is where my iPhone comes into its own.

Most of the plot has been created when most of you are tucked up in bed. Ideas reveal themselves at the most inappropriate times, and this when I start typing notes on my phone.

As always, I continue to write anonymously but should anybody ask who I am, I shall say that ‘My name is Harry.’