Jeffrey talks about As The Crow Flies

As The Crow Flies

Hi, my name is Jeffrey Archer and I’d like to talk to you about one of my earlier novels, As The Crow Flies, based on a remarkable man who founded Tesco. In the book, he’s called Charlie Trumper.

Now, Charlie was born, born in the East End of London and learnt to be a barrow boy from an early age. In fact, the opening line of the book is, I don’t offer you this for a penny, I don’t offer you this for a half penny, I’ll let you have it for a farthing.

And that’s how he started, on a store in the East End of London. And you follow Charlie Trumper’s life from his days in the East End to building his first store and then a group of stores, and then, of course, being President of Tesco.

But that wasn’t enough for Charlie, because Charlie wanted to go from the East End all the way to the House of Lords, where he ended up Lord Trumper.

And as he says on the last line of the book, not so far As the Crow Flies.