Melissa Kite: My attempt to parody myself as a scrawny neurotic didn’t tickle Mrs Inglis pink

A very cross letter arrives from someone who wants to tell me I’m a ‘silly woman’. ‘You are a silly woman,’ says the letter. It is from a lady called Mrs Inglis who lives in Edinburgh but gives no more exact address or email so that I can reply.

If I could reply, I would write back and say: ‘Dear Mrs Inglis, Of course I’m a silly woman. That’s kind of the point.’ Mrs Inglis also sends me a copy of my own article. She sends it to me, in the post. She has cut it out of the magazine and put it in an envelope. This is not the first time such a thing has happened. When I was a political correspondent on the Telegraph I was inundated with people sending me my own articles on a daily basis.

I am never really sure why anyone thinks I might not have read what I’ve written. A cursory reflection on the writing process would surely lead one to the conclusion that it is more than likely a writer might be aware of the musings that have come out of their head.

But over the years I have been sent many copies of my own work, sometimes annotated, sometimes with biblical quotations on them, once with a detailed drawing of a part of the male anatomy at the top, with a picture of my face superimposed on it. They’re all in a cardboard box somewhere, in case I need to cheer myself up one day when I’m old.