I met Mol­ly Parkin in 1953 when we were both at the same Art School. Apart from be­ing the most at­trac­tive girl on the course she was ex­ep­tion­al­ly tal­ent­ed both
as a painter and as a writ­er. I fell in love with her.
At one point we were en­gaged to be mar­ried but it
nev­er hap­pened. I moved to New York and we lost
track of each oth­er.
Re­turn­ing to Lon­don in 1967 I re­dis­cov­ered her. She was mar­ried, had two daugh­ters and was be­ing ex­traor­di­nar­i­ly suc­cess­ful not on­ly as a painter but as the high­ly re­gard­ed fash­ion ed­i­tor of the trendy mag­a­zine No­va.
She al­so had a bou­tique on the Kings Road in Chelsea, a restau­rant in Bel­gravia, drove a ca­nary-​yel­low Rolls Royce, was awash with mon­ey and had be­come an al­co­holic.

In the 70s and 80s she turned to writ­ing her com­ic erot­ic nov­els -​ ten of them -​ and at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of nu­mer­ous TV chat-​show hosts fas­ci­nat­ed by her out­spo­ken­ness and bawdy wit. She had achieved celebri­ty.

She over­came her demons some of which she'd car­ried with her from child­hood and re­turned with re­newed en­thu­si­asm to the paint­ing and writ­ing. We have re­mained good friends through the years and now, both in our sev­en­ties, she has al­lowed me to film her in­spi­ra­tional sto­ry