My mum and I attended the Jasper Fforde fan convention in Swindon, the Fforde Ffiesta, where we had a really fantastic time celebrating the vision and quirkiness of Fforde’s novels, among them The Eyre Affair, The Big Over Easy and The Last Dragonslayer. If you are reading this and are unaware of his work, I advise you to pick one of his books and have a read.

As he discussed with my mum, who is a librarian, they are hard to classify. Are they crime? Sci-fi? Fantasy? I do not know how to get around that, I am just glad I took a punt on a copy of The Eyre Affair a few years ago in HMV. I like to read the first line of a book, it’s one of my tests to see whether I will like it, and this one had me hooked: ‘My father had a face that would stop a clock.’

Roger Mason, Jasper Fforde and Sue Mason at the Fforde Ffiesta, Swindon.