‘Hilary’, as a name, is epicene: there are male Hilarys, there are female Hilarys. For a writer who set out to tell a story from the viewpoint of a woman – and a woman whose personality combined a natural femininity with a spirited independence – it seemed a particularly apposite choice of pen-name.

When the first Hilary Ford novel was published (back in 1958), the writer tells us, it ‘engendered some interesting feedback from male readers. One told me he was a First Mate in the mercantile marine and “worshipped my every fault and failing”. Another, from an impressive Westminster address, offered to wine and dine me in an unspecified but fairly obvious cause.’

During a writing career spanning more than six decades Sam Youd published fifty-seven novels, seven of these as Hilary Ford. He was perhaps best known as John Christopher, writer of The Death of Grass and the young adult series The Tripods.