I was 26 when I wrote my first autobiography. I didn't market it as an autobiography, of course. Who's going to believe that by the age of 26 anyone would have enough material to fill a book? The m/s kept coming back unread because novice authors are not considered skilled enough to write in the first person - so said all the agents in South Africa at the time. On opening up the 5th refusal citing this as the reason, I kinda lost it, strode to my computer and wrote back that I didn't give a damn what some people could or could not do - only in what I could do. And I bloody well COULD write in the first person. Thus began a wonderful relationship with Frances Bond who became my agent, and remained so until her untimely death. But, we didn't see eye to eye on her perception of two of the characters - Phil and George. She kept telling me to tone them down, and insisted that they were OTT as characters and the kinds of things that happened to them were so biza...