In 1973, when Awakenings was published in England and selected as... as a book of the year by five people in The Observer, Jonathan said to me, 'You’re famous now'. But I got no impression of that, or whatever that means. Awakenings didn’t do particularly well here, and... and although I think it was gradually getting momentum, especially among medical students who would sort of, I think, sometimes have copies in brown paper, you know, like pornography, they would read it secretly because it was still disapproved of by the... by the high-ups in the profession.

My Leg book did not do particularly well, and it was not expected that The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat would do well. My publishers, my... who were then Summit Books, and Jim Silberman was the publisher and editor, and he, too, has been a very important influence in my life. He can spot the heart of a piece quicker than anyone else – he’s... he always gets a bull's eye – but Summit had a small printing of 10,000 books, or whatever. And then, suddenly, and almost before any reviews appeared the book was on the bestseller list of The Times, and Summit had to do another printing, and then another and another and another and another. And the book soared, and this was my first experience of having a... a best-seller and becoming known.  And so that, perhaps, was fame in... in a more tangible sense.

One aspect of this, and this has continued and, in fact, increased continually over the years, I got hundreds of letters from people... I got dozens of letters from people who asked about Jimmy, the Lost Mariner. They said, 'How is he, you know, how’s he doing? Give my best to him'.  And it was extraordinary how, you know, how people... so Jimmy was felt as a human being and... and I did give some of their regards to him, though, of course, because he was amnesic he... he forgot it straight away, although, perhaps he got some good affect from this, I think he probably did. So there were many, many letters and then many invitations.