Author Leslie Thomas in front of Salisbury Cathedral. DB3166P14

BOOK-SIGNINGS are funny things, muses Leslie Thomas. You never know who, if anyone, is going to turn up.

"I was doing one once at a bookshop in Salisbury, at Christmas time, and this old chap came in, bought a copy and asked me to sign it for Sam, which I did, then another for Peggy.

"Ten times he came back and I asked him why," Leslie tells me.

"He said his wife had died two weeks ago and he'd never done any Christmas shopping before so he'd bought everybody the same book."

The story is both funny and touching - like so much of his writing, which, over the last 40 years, has kept him at the top of the best-seller lists.

This Christmas he will be signing books again.

His latest novel, Soldiers and Lovers, a bittersweet wartime romance of love and loss, has just been published and he will be on book signing duty at Waterstone's, in Salisbury High Street, on December 4.

Not that he will have to travel far because the author and erstwhile resident of the Walton Canonry in the Cathedral Close - "the grandest house a working class boy could hope for" - is back in town.

Leslie Thomas happy in his home. DB3166P11

Four months ago, he and his wife Diana moved into the slightly less grand, but still eminently desirable, Grade II-listed De Vaux House, less than a stone's throw from the Close they left ten years ago, and they are delighted to be back.

"We're the only people I know who can downsize and come up with seven bedrooms," he chuckles. "We'd thought of Winchester but we weren't keen and we were both happy to come here.

"It's a place where you can join in.

"We've been to a quiz at the arts centre and we're going to the Woodfalls Band concert before Christmas.

"I go out for a walk everyday and meet at least six people I know.

"It is like a village round here."

Leslie and Diana returned to Salisbury largely at the behest of Leslie's daughter, Lois, who runs a bed and breakfast establishment, Spire House, in Exeter Street.

Her suggestion that they move back to the city came at a time when Leslie and Diana were beginning to get itchy feet after eight years in a beautiful house overlooking Lymington Harbour.

"Four floors and artificial hips don't mix," he sighs.

Salisbury has also become home for another of the Thomas clan - youngest son Matthew, a scriptwriter, has moved here with wife Alex and baby daughter Zoe, nicknamed Beanie.

"Beanie was christened in Salisbury Cathedral by Jeremy Davies, who is an old friend of mine," says her 76-year-old grandfather.

"As Jeremy was holding her over the font, she shouted out one of the only words she knew - duck!"

We chuckle at the vision of the entire congregation diving for cover before Leslie is off on another stream of thought.

You don't so much interview Leslie Thomas as listen, laugh and offer the odd prompt as he chats away, going off at tangents and churning out anecdotes.

He namedrops shamelessly - about lunch with Ted Heath, nattering to Cherie Blair and playing cricket with Tim Rice and Rory Bremner - as though, after all these years, he still cannot believe his good fortune to be moving in such exalted circles.

"Ted Heath was the first person to ask us over when we moved to the Close," he says.

"I said: I can't believe I live here - I'm a working class boy' and he said, So am I', which I suppose he was.

"I am not political, but he was an unusual man and a great friend to us."

Despite his protests, Leslie is undoubtedly an A-lister in his own right and not just because words like amiable, affable and absolutely charming spring immediately to mind after a conversation with him.

He famously started out life as a Barnardo's boy.

His merchant seaman father drowned when his ship was torpedoed in the war and his mother died six months later. Leslie and his younger brother Roy were placed into a Dr Barnardo's orphanage.

At 16, he became a reporter, in London, but his career was interrupted by national service, providing him with the experiences that were to translate into his first bestselling novel, The Virgin Soldiers.

Since then he has produced 31 novels, two volumes of autobiography and a number of travel books, as well as numerous newspaper and magazine articles and broadcasts.

He was awarded an OBE in 2005 and is a vice-president of Barnardo's.

One of his passions has always been cricket - he played for the Lord's Taverners in younger days and hosted two matches in the Close which raised £28,000 each for the charity.

"I've always been keen but I am an average player.

"But with the Lord's Taverners you found yourself playing with these international cricketers.

"I remember going into bat with Colin Cowdrey at Arundel." he tails off, misty-eyed with the memory, and Journal photographer Lara Ball moves in for a close-up.

She has been snapping away as he talks but she is keen to ensure that she gets a picture when he is not talking, and that promptly sets him off on another story.

"I'm President of the Merchant Navy Association in Newport - I do it for my old man.

"I wear his medals, the three medals I got myself for no particular distinguished service and my OBE and, when I walk, Diana says that I clank.

"I try to keep a serious face, but I look so lugubrious that it looks as though I am about to die."

His conversation is peppered with references to his wife of 37 years, Diana, who sits in on our interview.

If they were pieces of furniture, he would be the comfortable, squashy armchair and she the elegant chaise longue.

She is his business manager, agent and doer-up of their houses, of which there have been a fair few over the years.

Wanderlust seems to have been a recurring theme of the Thomas's marriage.

"We both like the adventure of moving," he confesses.

"We've had about 14 houses over 37 years. We've also had three at a time on occasion, which is why I am glad we're down to just one.

"We had to ban Country Life.

"I remember writing an article when we were living at North Gorley near Fordingbridge. I wrote about the house in lyrical prose and said we'd never leave it, but before it was published, we'd moved.

"But I think we've come to a full stop with this one."

"Mind you, we had lunch at the almshouses at St Nicholas Hospital the other day. I might put my name down for one of those.."

Soldiers and Lovers, which is published by William Heinemann, is available from all good bookshops, rrp £17.99.

Leslie Thomas will be signing copies at Waterstone's in High Street, Salisbury on December 4 between 12pm - 2pm.

11:33am Thursday 22nd November 2007

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