Did Stonehouse inspire Reginald Perrin – or vice versa?
When the first Reginald Perrin novel appeared in 1975, readers would have been forgiven for thinking the author had been inspired by real-life events. David Nobbs’ tale of Mr Perrin, a troubled sales executive at Sunshine Desserts who stripped off his clothing on a beach in Dorset and faked his own demise, bore an uncanny resemblance to the saga of John Stonehouse. The strange behaviour of the Labour MP on a beach in Florida in November 1974 had gained such worldwide publicity that claiming ignorance would not have been a valid explanation. But Nobbs had every reason to assert that his fiction had nothing to do with Stonehouse’s fall from public grace. He had completed his first Perrin novel in June 1974, some five months before the MP had travelled to Miami. Similarly, Stonehouse cannot be accused of seeking inspiration from the books. They were published long after his arrest in Australia and attempts to seek asylum in Sweden and Mauritius before being extradited back to Britain to f
