Never mind the one per cent - we're the bottom 30 per cent and proud

Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s Ark, will talk about his new book, Daughters of Mars, a First World War epic, at the 20th Century Theatre in Notting Hill on June 5. With tickets at £20, this is a fundraiser for First Story, the charity started by Katie Waldegrave to encourage literacy in challenging secondary schools.

“Tom Keneally is keen to help us,” says Waldegrave, whose father William, the former Tory Cabinet minister, is Provost at Eton. The PM seems to be finding his own secondary schooling a challenge these days, so will Keneally speak at Eton?

“We deal with the bottom 30 per cent,” says Waldregave, whose first book, the Daughters of Wordsworth and Coleridge, is out in September.