Phyllida Law at the Philip Larkin Centre

The new mode of meet the author 'in conversation' events kicked off at The Philip Larkin Centre here at the University of Hull last night, with a visit by Phyllida Law.
For me, it was a heart-warming evening of my two worlds drawing together. Phyllida lives on the same street as me in London. The morning drew us together, me sitting in a studio in Radio Humberside, talking with the host in her studio in Grimsby, while Phyllida was on the line from her living room before taking the Hull train.
Phyllida's book Notes to my Mother-in Law was launched at The Ivy last month. For her speech, Phyllida lifted a glass and raised a toast my way. It was very touching, the whole evening a delightful culmination of a project we had been working on together in secret for over a year, initially producing a surprise birthday book for her daughter Emma Thompson before I ferried the manuscript on to an agent and a bidding war began.
The book, composed of notes left for her increasingly deaf mother-in-law to keep her in touch with family life, is light, funny, and poignant. It has that actor's ear for dialogue and eye for detail, curiosity for the human condition, and sense of timing that you also find in Alan Bennett.
It was Phyllida's first live audience event with the book - which has been well aired on national radio and TV. It was fun to feel the warmth she engendered, and hear the laughter of response. A car whisked her away into the night, and an early-morning call for a film role in Newcastle. Then she will be on the night train back to London, set to be whisked the next day to film an episode of Poirot in Hatfield House. The writing life suits her hermit self, she told us, but she surely does the out-in-the-world stuff magnificently well.

The photo is of Phyllida and part of the creative support team at the University, Maria Fletcher and Jane Ellison. Photo by James Booth.