A hospital night porter who took 10 years to write a book during quiet shifts has just signed a £250,000 publishing deal.

Since 1990 Jamie O'Neill has worked at the Cassell Hospital in west London, an adult residential mental health unit run by Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham Mental Health trust where he wrote At Swim Two Boys.'I don't think they're too pleased to know that somebody's been writing on their time, 'he told journalists last week. 'It was a bit like getting a bursary from the NHS.'