PETER James remembers being pictured, top left, in his school football team, Prestonville, where he had a tyrannical bullying headmaster who terrified him – and Peter has subsequently used his persona in several of his villains. Peter got his revenge by having him appear as a scabby old villain in two of his Roy Grace novels.

The school was at the corner of Dyke Road and Old Shoreham Road, now two blocks of flats called Prestonville Court.

Second left in the middle row is Christopher Basley, the Brighton estate agent, who Peter knocked out in a boxing fight at the Exeter Street Hall in 1962. Over 50 years later, the author helped to save the hall for the community and was photographed by this newspaper wearing boxing gloves in the hall.

The picture top centre shows Peter in a suitably sinister location promoting his 1992 novel, Twilight.

Pictured top right, in sunglasses, Peter spent his 20th birthday with schoolfriend Chris Scott, who once played guitar at Charterhouse School with Genesis, and explorer Christina Dodwell, at Ouarzazate in the Sahara in 1968.

Below that, Peter is seen at home in the 1980s. Home back then was 8 Onslow Road, Hove.

Peter is also pictured here with his mother Cornelia James, who was glovemaker to the Queen.

They are outside Buckingham Palace on the way to attending a garden party.

And, bottom centre, Peter is with his mother again, aged five or six. In the background you can spot her Hillman Minx. They were pictured at their house in Withdean Road, where he grew up, from the age of four, at number 32.

The picture, bottom right, shows Peter aged two or three at his first home, number 44 Carlisle Road, in Hove.