When you work for Margaret Thatcher, you are either incredibly disciplined and hardworking, or you go home,” says Jeffrey Archer, embarking on a story about the night he was with the then prime minister in Plymouth, where she spoke to the Tory faithful before flying back to London. “As we were walking towards the helicopter, she said, ‘I’m not satisfied with the speech tonight, Jeffrey.’” He assured her that it was exactly the speech she should be making around the country. “She said, ‘No, I’m not happy with it, Jeffrey. Perhaps we could have breakfast tomorrow morning and talk it through.’ She gets in a helicopter. I’m in Plymouth!” He snorts as he recalls the looming six-hour drive to be there on time. “Come on,” he says. “She knew exactly what she was doing.”
This by way of explanation for the hard work and discipline that has allowed this former deputy chair of the Conservative Party, life peer, amateur sprinter, art collector and bestselling novelist to reach a remarkable milestone. Next week will see the publication of his 30th novel. His third and most famous, Kane & Abel (1979), has sold more copies than The Great Gatsby; his new one, End Game, turns on a Russian-Chinese plot to disrupt the 2012 London Olympics. It’s rooted, he insists, in real events. Archer does know, doesn’t he, that we all saw the Games go triumphantly ahead? He holds a finger in the air. “Freddie Forsyth once told me – the late Freddie, who I loved, a dear friend – he once told me, everybody turned down The Day of the Jackal with exactly the same sentence you just delivered. ‘We know [de Gaulle] didn’t die. I mean, who’s gonna read this story?’ Freddie said 15 people turned him down because of the sentence you just delivered.”
