I am preparing eldest daughter for a six week adventure in Vietnam, Malaysia and perhaps Bali - she leaves this evening. I was asked what I suggested she read on long coach trips, and had to admit my favourite book which I read at 19, when travelling around South America, was Watership Down by Richard Adams. At the time, I also knew that my mother, Marion Boyars, had turned it down - big mistake. I loved it! So today I went to Waterstone's in Putney and bought a copy - it's sold as a children's book, but think it will be good reading for an Anthropology student, as it was for myself, about to read English & Philosophy at Bristol University.

While having a break from the July book keeping, I got the book out. And what do I discover - at 89, Richard Adams is alive and well. He was able to retire in 1974 after the phenomenal success of Watership Down - that's 35 happy years of walking in the natural habitat around his home in Whitchurch, Hampshire. Who said that publishing wasn't a good thing!