by Mayukh Ghosh

The eight year old wrote a 'superficial psychological tale' about a geeky young man named Clarence and sent that to the then successful and stylish Strand Magazine.

Strand was a very famous name and people like Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, P.G. Wodehouse, Max Beerbohm, Agatha Christie and C.B. Fry were regular contributors.

This young boy had even sacrificed a stamp for the reply which he imagined would be accompanied by a modest cheque.

The reply did come.
" Just don't waste our time with rubbish like this. And at least make some effort in presenting it properly. ", thundered the editorial rebuke.

The Strand closed in 1950 but by then this boy had grown up to become a very busy journalist.
He went on to become the most successful freelancer in the history of cricket writing.

In 2009, Stephen Chalke and Scyld Berry went to meet him. They wanted him to write on his early years.
He told that he was too old, too short of confidence, to write it.
But Chalke and Berry cajoled it out of him.
Of course, it was superb.

Geoffrey Moorhouse once said that "as a writer David Foot is as good as Robertson-Glasgow at his best".
Indeed. Even when he was 81.

This little known gem, Footsteps from East Coker, was launched on November 14, 2010.