The independent bookshop is endangered species. We should get Sir David Attenborough to do some sort of documentary.

Maybe the slow motion close-up camera work wouldn’t be quite so riveting, but the passion and the gentle authority of his voice certainly wouldn’t go amiss.

In an age where at the touch of a button, the multinational conglomerate Amazon can deliver virtually anything for tuppence, probably through your window by drone, this rare breed seems to sparkle even brighter in my old eyes.

In Wivenhoe, we have the glorious Wivenhoe Bookshop and in Colchester we have the majestic Red Lion Books.

In Wivenhoe we have the indefatigable Mr and Mrs Finn, in Colchester we have the imperious and erudite Mr Donaldson guarding the fort.

With these generals on the front line to stem the advance of the multinational, we may sleep more soundly in our beds my friends.

Put these two bastions of literacy and independence together with your best friend and you have a heady mix.

Stephen May became a novelist in his late 40s.

I first met him as the local music journalist in the graveyard of the Arts Centre (that’s literally, not metaphorically) in 1991.

Back then, of course, this sallow youth had no greater literary ambition than to file his column in the local newspaper.

You wouldn’t wish that sort of degrading toil on anyone would you?

On the basis of the old adage “It is not enough to succeed; one’s best friend must fail” I’m not doing very well.

Stephen has just published his fourth novel, has a string of accolades attached to him (including nomination for the Costa book award) and is a regular guest at the Cheltenham Book Festival.

This week he will be a guest of Wivenhoe Books at a reading on Wednesday at the Black Buoy and I shall be doing my best to spoil things for him by introducing him alongside Emma Kittle Pey on Thursday at 6.30 pm Red Lion Books. His new novel Stronger Than Skin Will be available at both events of course.

For bookings and more information on both events, visit their respective websites.

ANTHONY ROBERTS, DIRECTOR OF COLCHESTER ARTS CENTRE