I want to include in my independent-press roundup a small, one-man press — Welbeck Press — one-man in both senses, being run by Stephen Benatar to publish his own books. ‘Vanity publishing’, you will immediately cry, and you’d be right. But it is more complicated and more interesting than that.

It would be more accurate to say Welbeck republishes Benatar’s novels, as a number of them had been published by mainstream publishers, Penguin among them, and he has narrowly missed a Booker listing. So there is good reason for ‘vanity’ on his part.

Incidentally, one of his early novels was funded by his local council, which as far as I know, is unique in this country.

But the mainstream publishing industry now seeks an endless stream of new, preferably young and photogenic writers rather than mid-listers, and Penguin declined to re-issue his work, despite a good critical reception, by John Carey amongst others.

Hence the decision to go it alone, publish himself and promote his work the only way he could — by personal promotion, bookshop signings, mostly in branches of Waterstone’s.

Which is how I met him. He was offering signed copies of three titles in my local branch, and approached me perfectly politely, almost diffidently yet with a degree of conviction in his own books which any good author needs. Whenever I see authors doing the rounds like this, writerly solidarity kicks in and I usually buy, despite most such offered books turning out to be murder stories, horror or pop music biographies. Benatar’s work didn’t seem to fall into any of those categories, so not knowing which to choose I bought all three.

I enjoyed them; solidly constructed, well paced and crafted, with convincingly realized period settings, of the 1940s and 1950s. Two were in fact set during the war: Recovery, comprising two novellas; Letters For A Spy, based on an actual story — the British attempt (successful, as it turned out) to hoodwink Germany over a planned invasion of Sicily by dropping the body of a vagrant dressed as an officer and carrying documents, into Spanish waters. The plot and period detail I found compelling.

The other novel — The Man On The Bridge — was even better, almost a class apart. To describe it as a gay novel, as it has been, would be to limit it. It involves a gay relationship, at a time when such relationships were still illegal, but is subtler and both more and less specific. It is more about emotional manipulation, both men being manipulated, the older by the younger, but the younger in turn by his own emotions, of envy, insecurity and eventually love. It lies on the literary spectrum somewhere between Henry James and Alan Hollinghurst.

In the meantime, Stephen Benatar and I kept in touch, while he went on with his relentless campaign of signings. Never pushy; relentless in his schedule, most weekends being dedicated to this, despite the tiring pace. And it was steadily successful, Benatar averaging 100 to 150 copies over a good weekend.

And the persistence paid off: he was noticed by the journalist Cosmo Landesman in a London branch, who, impressed by his perseverance, asked to interview him for the British Sunday Times colour supplement. It was, despite the usual inaccuracies (Benatar has never even owned a fedora, to my knowledge) a positive account of his work, and his self-belief.

Now the republishing has gone into reverse: established publishers are re-issuing Welbeck titles. Capuchin Classics, an imprint devoted to mainly that — classic books by usually dead authors, so that to be published by them amounts to minor canonization, have issued one title with plans for more. And New York Review Books have recently published Wish Her Safe At Home, an early title of Benatar’s but with sufficient appeal to the actress Joanna Lumley for the suggestion of televised dramatization, although I don’t know what the state of play is on that.

And more recently, I saw — and it was this that prompted my blog today — a posting of a list in, I believe, the newly set up ‘American Reader’ of ‘Writers To Look Out For’. The list, on the strength of that NYRB edition, included Stephen Benatar.

I was delighted, for him and for more personal reasons: Benatar, in his seventies, is a decade my senior. I guess if you can be touted as an ‘up-and-coming writer’ in your seventies, there is hope for many more of us.