The people I meet have inspired my latest columns

My role as Boycie in Only Fools and Horses, and then in The Green Green Grass, made me a household name. But in recent years, I've pursued another passion: writing.

I published my first volume of autobiography Being Boycie in 2011 and it proved a big hit. I've also been on the road during the past two years, signing copies in bookshops and performing at theatres around the UK.

My second volume of autobiography, Boycie & Beyond, was published last September and that also proved successful.

Now I'm moving into a different field – I've become a novelist. My first work, Reggie – a Stag at Bay, will be published on October 8. I've had enormous fun writing it, in fact, I enjoyed writing it so much that I've already got plans for a follow-up, which will be out next year.

Now, I have a secret confession to make. You won't tell anybody, will you? I'm sure my secret will be safe among the 145,000 people who buy the Star. One or two of the characters in Reggie – a Stag at Bay may bear just a passing resemblance to people I've met and known in Shropshire and Herefordshire during the past 10 or 15 years.

I can't say any more than that. My lips are sealed. But I'm sure one or two people will leaf through the pages and say to themselves: 'Hmmm, that sounds remarkably like X, or Y, or Z'.

When I played Boycie in Only Fools and Horses, I worked for comedy writer John Sullivan. John was a great man and had a knack of putting real-life incidents in Only Fools and Horses.

Some of the greatest moments of all time were based on things that had happened to him, or to people he knew.

The séance in the Nag's Head, which was set up by Uncle Albert with his friend Elsie, was based on a conversation I had with John. I remember talking to John and saying people kept asking what Boycie's middle name was. Was it Mark, Billy or Tarquin . . . No, it could never have been Tarquin.

John considered the question and said: 'I'll get back to you'. And he did. He created the Sickness and Wealth episode where we gather around a table for a séance. The punchline, of course, was that my middle name was Aubrey.

There are echoes of truth in Reggie, a Stag at Bay. It's about a country gent who gets up to all sorts of escapades in the countryside.

It's not my first foray into creative writing however. During the early part of my career, I visited South Africa to feature in a play. The apartheid regime still held firm and it had a profound effect on me, in fact, it changed my life.

I didn't have any racist instincts in me at all; colour had never been a factor in any friendships or working relationships, and while I deplored the inherent unfairness of the apartheid system, I really believed, and still do, that it would help more to go and engage with black audiences, as well as the whites who were basically funding the tour.

From the moment I set foot in the Republic of South Africa I was conscious that I had entered a world where entirely different standards of human behaviour applied. I wrote a play about my experiences, which enjoyed a successful run.

My work as a TV actor then took over, and I put my writing ambitions on hold. But I've finally found time to write my first novel and I can't wait for people to read it. I had great fun writing it and there are a number of laugh-out-loud scenes. I hope you all find time to read it.