MR Martindale is not one to hide his light under a bushel and tells me the book is due out in April.

Writing, curiously, in the third person he says it “describes his early life on the streets of Manea and London and the subsequent life of crime which led to him being on the run for 16 years from the police.

“Billy lives in Essex with his wife Tina and their children and is on the ‘straight and narrow’ and has been for years.”

He adds: “The point of the book is not to glorify crime, but to show others how lonely this type of life can be.

“One of Billy Martindale’s other missions is to give talks at schools in deprived areas, or anywhere that requests him. The point of this is to show teenagers what damage a life of crime can cause to your life and hopefully encourage them to stay away from it.”

Billy does, indeed, seem a reformed character and he also tells me some of the book’s proceeds will be going to a cancer charity.