When the hospitable Harrisons moved to Ireland, Harry decided to give a dinner for old friends. Typical of Harry.

Was it at Shutterstock we gathered? I forget. Anyhow, we were given a grand gloomy room to ourselves and we sat at a huge table which soon filled with delectable eatable things. And with much good wine.

I was seated next to a German chap. We got on immensely well. I have always been glad I was not called upon to fight the Germans in the war; I fought the Japanese instead – which could be why I’ve never heard from them since.

When the banquet was over, we guests began to wend our way uphill to home or hotel. It was summer and still light. The German came running up to me. He said, “You don’t know my name, do you?” I didn’t, and was sorry to have to confess as much.

“I’m your publisher in Germany, Brian. My name is Wolfgang Jeschke.”

And he went on to say that people made themselves pleasant to him because he was a publisher. It was a form of hypocricy. But I had been innocent of all that.

“Well, I shall be doubly pleasant from now on,” I told him, laughing. Wolfgang laughed too.

And that was the start of the friendship which had already ignited. And indeed, from then on Wolfgang was my publisher in Germany, and he published a good many of my titles, I used to pop over to Hamburg to see him. I dined in his house with his pleasant wife, Rosemarie.

Wolfgang was born in November 1936 in Czechoslovakia. He retired from Heyne in 2002. Since when the company has published none of my books.

One of Wolfgang’s great friends was Usch Kiausch, a lady who used to do translations for him. This wonderful and scrupulous person used to attend the annual Conference of the Fantastic in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It was there we got to know each other. And she has visited me in Oxford. She still works in bustling Mannheim.

Indeed, now my memory is ruinous, it was to Usch I turned for the name of Wolfgang Jeschke. Once more I did not know his name.