It would be delivered by taxi: no email, no digital media, nor even any fax machines then. Journalists are used to writing to deadlines, so we agreed she would deliver a chapter of the novel every week and so I received the new material every Friday thereafter.

She worked immensely hard: up at five every day to put in three hours novel-writing before she left for work.

In 1981, Maeve was London Correspondent of the Irish Times she was reporting on events as diverse as the engagement and wedding of Charles and Diana, and the Brixton riots. Buses passed by, no one stopped to see them…’ The novel begins with a Prologue set on the steps of a coroner’s court, while ‘…the world was going on normally. The pain and distress etched on her face made Maeve wonder what had brought the stranger to that moment. It was the sight of a woman emerging from the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand that caught Maeve’s attention. It all started with a scene Maeve had observed as she travelled into work from her home in west London to the Irish Times office in Fleet Street. Yet again, a self-doubting, fluttery, bird-brain heroine had been swept away by a masterful man…’ To this day, my party piece is to recite the opening of Chapter One: ‘Violet finished the library book and closed it with a snap. It was written in 1981 and first published in 1982 now, more than thirty years later, the writing is as vivid as ever and as firmly imprinted on my mind. I treasure every one of Maeve’s novels, but Light a Penny Candle will always have a profound hold on my heart. We love all our children equally, of course but most would admit that there is a special bond with the first-born.

No Comments Christine Green, Maeve Binchy’s agent, explains why her favourite is the first novel, Light a Penny Candle. In Extras, favourite, light-a-penny-candle |

To light a penny candle