As a small child I answered the door one morning to a caller for my ageing aunt who lived in the attic annex. The door opened to reveal an impossibly tall African LAdy, with an even taller male companion.

‘Good Morning. I am Elizabeth, This is Joshua, my body guard, and you must be Rupert.’ She reached out to shake my marmite-encrusted hand.

My aunt had been her tutor and she was on the run. It was 1975. She had been told by Idi Amin to marry him, refused, and escaped by night into Kenya. She was Princess of the ancient Kingdom of Toro, in Uganda, and came to live in our house for several months.

She is such an amazing woman that I went, at her request, to the Rwenzori Mountains and together we wrote a treatment for a film of her life. This was before Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland, and nobody was interested. But I spent several weeks researching and meeting with village elders.

The story is to be continued one day…