The launch of Vikki Heywood’s debut novel Miss Veal and Miss Ham, took place on Friday, October 3. Chapter One Bookshop in Narberth was filled by brave people who struggled through Storm Amy to attend.

Vikki described it as a wonderful evening. Renowned local actor and Tenby Town Councillor Charles Dale joined her for a reading from the novel.

Charles Dale is, of course, very well known in Tenby and best known nationally for his ten-year portrayal of Big Mac in hospital drama Casualty, as well as his roles in Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Vikki Heywood was a leading light in the theatre world running the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Royal Shakespeare Company before she began her novel writing career. She was Chairman of the Royal Society of the Arts and in 2020 was awarded a Damehood by the Queen for services to the Arts.

Vikki and her Welsh husband Clive Jones live above Castle Beach in Tenby.

With echoes of Barbara Pym and Sarah Waters, Vikki’s new novel is a moving and witty love story spanning four decades from the suffragette movement, through the Second World War, to the early ’50s.

Chapter One is a friendly and quirky independent bookshop attached to Narberth Museum at the Bonded Stores and the town’s only independent bookshop - a haven for book lovers with over 6,000 titles in stock.