Celia never knew there were such beings as literary agents until she shared a flat at university with the daughter of Mervyn Peake’s agent, who lived in the country and had hens wandering in and out of his office and nesting in his manuscripts (the agent, not Mervyn Peake). Influenced by this idyll, she began her publishing career selling rights and then went to work for Gina and Murray Pollinger, where she discovered JM Coetzee among the unsolicited scripts, but no chickens.

Celia also trained in art, and when it came time to set up her own agency, she concentrated on children’s books, and in particular on discovering and developing new author-illustrators of picture books. She never did make the move back from London to the country, nor has a hen ever wandered into her office – and if one ever did, it would now find not one single paper manuscript in which to lay an egg.