By the way , reading the Private Eye magazine I can't help comparing it's "styles" with those incredible originals scripts, written by Henry Moor. The millions who enjoyed the original 'Root' will no doubt have assumed that such a public and hysterical scam could never be repeated.

His heroes were few, but those who were, to Root's mind, "sound" - principally Mrs Thatcher, the Dowager Lady Birdwood and James Anderton, "God's Cop", the self-appointed guardian of Greater Manchester's morals. Or saying that Henry Root Junior thought Cliff Richard was working behind the makeup counter at Boots makes me think, but for "Congratulations" go he. It consists of real correspondence between an apparently wealthy and eccentric retired fish-merchant, and many public figures to whom he wrote, requesting support for bizarre right-wing proposals. Edna Welthorpe was a prudish middle-aged housewife who was strongly opposed to her creator Joe Orton's plays. The sender of these letters – a cantankerous crusader against pornography and modernity, and for hanging and Mrs.Esther Rantzen doesn't come out quite so well - there's a disagreement about whether the BBC should pay Root for some unusable script material, and Rantzen sends the same response to two different letters - the first from Root praising the show, the second, again thanking him and saying how much they appreciate viewer contributions is in response to his missive which says simply, "Dear Esther, You're a fat idiot and your show's a disgrace.

Donaldson lived at 139 Elm Park Mansions on Park Walk, Chelsea, London SW10, from which address all the Root letters were sent. He was educated at Winchester College (where he first met Julian Mitchell) and Magdalene College, Cambridge. The cheek and audacity of Henry Root leaps off the page and each anecdote is funnier and more preposterous than the last. It is very non PC and there is a wave of guilt that I should find it amusing, but nevertheless it is a good read. Liz Reed - another character created by William Donaldson, Reed's TV production pitches - for shows such as 'Disabled Gladiators' and 'Anglotrash' - in the guise of Heart Felt Productions were collected in the 1998 book, The Heart Felt Letters.M Godding Books Ltd is an internet book business running from Wiltshire and sending books all over the world every working day. H. Rochester Sneath - the fictional headmaster of the fictional British public school Selhurst, created by Humphry Berkeley. I love this book and his laugh out style at trying to rankle celebrities and people in the public eye. Jean Rook's reply "I am certainly not a thinking man's Anna Raeburn, so you must solve your own problems. He later remembered that "sex, whether in company or not, has been the only department in life in which I have demanded from anyone taking part the very highest standards of seriousness.

a b c "William Donaldson – Womanising satirist and novelist who squandered several fortunes on wild living".

Root first came to my attention more years ago than I care to admit when I was in Denmark and saw the televised version of Root into Europe. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson, Terence Blacker, Ebury Press, 2007, pp.