Andrew Hewson

Forager of talent and fungi, he was the much-loved agent for writers such as Beryl Bainbridge and Dick Francis

- Patrick Kidd

Andrew Hewson had a routine when his most celebrated client was up for the Booker prize. The literary agent would make a close examination of the television cables on the floor to work out which table they headed for. “Unfortunately, they never snaked towards her,” he sighed in 2010 at an event to celebrate Beryl Bainbridge, who was shortlisted five times for the prize without winning.

Hewson and his wife, Margaret, who was also his business partner, had picked up Bainbridge as a client in the 1980s when she was critically acclaimed but poorly rewarded. The agent and the author shared a ripe sense of humour and a dislike of pretension that led Bainbridge to tell the King’s Lynn literary festival in 1999 that her favourite new book was an overlooked masterpiece called As Flies to Wanton Boys by Rhoda F Cornstock. As a ripple of pseudo-approval spread, Bainbridge outlined its plot about incest in rural circles, which some in the Norfolk audience found insulting when she confessed that it was made up.

Hewson had to apologise, insisting: “It was just a jolly old joke.” He won them round with customary charm. There was not an ounce of unkindness in him.