‘Jilly Cooper’s manners were impeccable. Every time I wrote anything about her over the years, a handwritten card arrived days later, thanking me warmly’

The ‘bonkbuster’ queen Jilly Cooper was a cultured author whose modesty and humour lit up her novels

Portrait of emerging writer Jilly Cooper in her sitting room, 1971. Photo: Getty

It was Joanna Trollope who pointed out just how hard Jilly Cooper worked to stop the world seeing how clever and cultured she was.

Certainly her levels of self-deprecation were off the charts. I once commented on how hard-working she was (she wrote 18 works of fiction and 27 of non-fiction). She explained, in all seriousness: “I’m very hard-working because I’m very stupid. I’m very slow.”