In the mid 70s Saatchi's were ensconced in the iconic Cunard building in Lower Regent Street and the company was growing fast.

At that time there was a great deal of IRA activity in London, and when working late in the studio, we often heard the frightening, deep, boom of a bomb exploding, and sometimes not too far away. There was one at a club in St James's Square and the nearest to date was a shoe shop in Jermyn Street, just around the corner.

Indeeed the most terrifying incident occurred a little later in 1982 when I had to meet Tim Bell at the offices of Lowe Howard Spink regarding The Conservative Party work.

I drove over from Charlotte Street and parked my car in Hyde Park, walked about 200 yards towards the park exit and into the offices. I must have been in there about 5 minutes when there was a huge explosion nearby and I remember the large park-facing office window bowing inwards.

That was the day that the IRA planted a car bomb that killed 2 soldiers and 7 horses of the Household Cavalry which had been detonated precisely as they passed the car which was parked in Hyde Park - and one that I had walked past only 15 minutes earlier!

However, back a few years to Lower Regent Street.

One evening at about 5pm I was sitting in reception talking to a supplier when our Office Manager, Tony Hewitson, walked past taking the days outgoing post up to the post-box by Piccadilly Circus – a walk of about 50 yards.

About 30 seconds later it came. BOOM!

Everyone in the reception area went quiet, looked worryingly at each other as we all knew what it was. A few minutes after that the glass doors opened and in walked Tony, white as sheet and with his hair bolt upright.

It seems that a bomb had exploded in the very same post-box.

Luckily he wasn't physically injured as many others were, but the first rather insensitive question anyone asked Tony was "when the bomb exploded, were you on the way to the post-box, or coming back from it?"

In other words, where are the letters?

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Written for the book, CHUTSPAH & CHUTSPAH