At the beginning of November Simone Taylor suddenly flew in to Heathrow. Somehow the press was alerted to the fact. She was not allowed to speak to the press about the rape of course, indeed the press were not supposed to know she was the complainant, but since she had opened her heart to the New York Post it was common knowledge in the media.

So there was extraordinary coverage of her arrival in all the newspapers; she was seen on all the television news bulletins, yet nobody could actually say why. There was no doubt that she was, at this moment in time, a Celebrity, a Mystery Celebrity: Simone Taylor, Cosmetics Executive. Cameras clicked and whirred and flashed as she arrived at the airport in a fur coat and dark glasses like any film star; she was hurried away in a limousine with smoky windows but not before waiting journalists saw that she was hurried away by someone who was euphemistically known as a public relations consultant. Among journalists who knew him he was known as a shit and they rushed to their telephones.

BLUE RAPE: MEDIA HARLOTRY BEGINS? the papers bellowed next morning. The rights to her story were bitterly fought over by rival newspaper groups. Serious newspapers discussed in their pages once again the ethics of ‘pocketbook journalism’. There was also much discussion about anonymity for the accused in rape trials as well as for the victims; there was a good deal of sympathy for Terence Blue in some quarters, though not, on the whole, from women.

Simone Taylor, it was reported, was not this time staying at the Dorchester; she was to be found in a suite at Claridges. She herself remained inviolate, spoke to no press.

But once again members of the class of ’59 found themselves in the limelight; there was an immense hullaballoo when it was realised that Frances Kitson, she of the large bosom and the far from innocent smile in the Wise Insurance TV commercial, had also been at the infamous reunion.

So that Frances found herself one morning, to her great surprise, on the front page of the Sun which described her as a younger, naughtier, and more attractive version of Ena Sharples (Ena Sharples! she complained to Harry, what about Jane Russell or Rita Hayworth, they had red hair); she was asked to be on a celebrity TV quiz show with a pop singer and a nun; the same day she suddenly got the part in the Triumph Telephones commercial. It was going to be a series of six adverts, probably more; she would make an enormous amount of money, much much more than she had ever earned as an actress in her life.

She phoned Harry and Emmy Lou.