I've just calculated that I have written at least nine million words as a journalist and another three and a half million words of fiction (not including re-writes).

And I’m still at it, at the rate of close to 3,000 words a week for the Examiner.

As I have always said, it’s better than having a proper job.

The prompt to tot up my wordage was an obscure reference in a newspaper article where a chap boasted he had written thousands of words on a particular subject.

My journalistic endeavours have not been about any particular subject, but have covered everything from criminal courts to rock bands.

I have interviewed Prime Ministers and comedians, written about the famous and infamous, witnessed triumphs and tragedies, covered golden weddings, church fetes and fatal fires.

I have been at sea, in UN monitored war zones, a photographer on the East African Safari rally, flown in choppers, been on the flight deck of a Boeing and the footplate of a London bound express train.

The Ministry of Defence investigated my background before granting me high security clearance.

I have been on police raids and was once invited to write a story about the election success of the Kenyan African National Party at the point of a machete.

I agreed on grounds of news merit and health, and still wrote a balanced story.

My fiction has sent me into dangerous situations and provided me with incredible heroes and villainous enemies, characters who have been sympathetic and distasteful.

Many have been based on real people and, I must confess, a couple of the heroes had a touch of me about them.

Using words on a daily basis has been a wonderful way to earn a living, allowed me to meet people I would never have met under normal circumstances, launched friendships and, in fiction, given me an outlet into other lives and other worlds.

There’s never a dull moment in front of a keyboard.

Probably the most fascinating area I culled for words has been the past: I love nostalgia and spent many happy hours, days and probably months, in the Examiner archive looking at back issues.

Maybe that’s my destiny: my words have been kept in the archives of at least nine newspapers and my books are part of the British Museum catalogue.

Perhaps someone, 100 years from now, will dig into the Examiner archives and think: “Who was this bloke?

He didn’t half write a lot of stuff.

“Still, it was better than having a proper job.”