“The day I learned, I ran to my mother and said excitedly, ‘I can read, I can read’,” he recalls, after we meet at one of his favourite bookshops, Bryars & Bryars, in London’s Covent Garden.

“She replied, ‘You now have a key with which you can open the wonders of the world’. And I’ve always felt that’s been true ever since. Reading is the key to understanding and has always been for me. It’s an absolutely central part of my life.”

Almost seven decades later, one of the wonders that Simon remembers most fondly is the world of Rupert Bear, the Daily Express’s lovable comic strip character, who celebrates his 122nd birthday this month.

Rupert’s illustrated adventures, which still appear daily in this paper as well as in bestselling Christmas annuals, helped shape Simon’s childhood.

“I learned very many important moral lessons from reading those stories,” he reveals. “They showed this innocent bear who was sometimes threatened by malevolent forces.

“But he and his chums always survived somehow because they were fearless
adventurers. He and his chums felt like my chums too because books take you into another world.”

As a self-confessed bibliomane (someone who loves collecting books), Simon is urging Daily Express readers to dig deep for our Christmas appeal for Give A Book.

He has been working with the charity, whose aim is to promote books and the pleasure of reading in the hardest-to-reach places in the UK.

As well as seeing its efforts in distributing books to schools and disadvantaged children – and building libraries in schools – Simon has witnessed first-hand the transformational effect of Give A Book’s work in prisons, such as Wormwood Scrubs.

In 2017, with Give A Book (and a partner charity, Prison Reading Groups), he put on a version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, wittily titled Scrooge in the Scrubs, inside the West London Category B jail, with inmates as cast and crew.

“It was extraordinarily chilling, the first time I’d ever been in a prison,” he tells me.

“But I didn’t experience any hostility at all. They’d put up a sign on the wall asking prisoners to put their names down if they wanted to be involved. There was a huge uptake. We had about 80 people.

“Of course, it’s a story about redemption, about somebody, Scrooge, trying to put his life right again – and, in a prison, that rang every possible bell. They talked freely and very emotionally, very movingly about it. And I was fantastically touched by that.

“They were incredibly pleased to be doing something that took them away. They became someone else.

“It was liberating for them as it is for us as actors too. That’s one of the reasons we do it, we don’t have to be ourselves any more, we can be somebody else.”

As well as winning a prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award and being nominated twice for a Bafta for his work in film and television, Simon’s love of reading has also led to him becoming a successful writer himself, penning nearly 20 books, as well as countless articles for newspapers and magazines.

So which, I ask him, did he want to be first, an actor or a writer?

“Oh, a writer absolutely, that was my first and great ambition, to write books. I wrote torrentially, hammering away at a cheap plastic typewriter I’d managed to acquire.

“I wrote enormous amounts, huge long tracts and, of course, all about myself! But even I could see that this was a subject of somewhat limited interest to the world at large.

“Yet I didn’t really know what else to write about. Then later, when I became an actor, I suddenly thought, ‘My God, what an interesting job this is’, so I started to write about that. And, in 1984, it became my first book, Being An Actor.”

Asked to name his favourite authors, Simon replies: “Shakespeare is what I always return to, and Dickens, of course. I started reading them quite early, long before I really understood them. I just liked the sound of them and I read out loud from them.”

Reading aloud, he believes, is a good way for children, or those to whom language does not come easily, to nurture a love of words.

“My recommendation to anyone reading something like Dickens for the first time is to read him out loud because that’s what
happened back then,” he says.

“The stories were released as weekly episodes and the head of the household would read them out loud to the family. So speak the words and listen to them. Dickens can look a bit daunting on the page sometimes but just read it out loud and you’ll feel his life force surging through you.”

Simon is currently reading the collected short stories of Death in Venice author Thomas Mann – but says Christopher Isherwood is, as a writer, one of his all-time heroes: “I thought his prose exquisite and loved his stories and the world that he described.

“I once had occasion to phone Isherwood because I was writing a book about his neighbour, the actor Charles Laughton, whom he’d also worked with.

“I asked Isherwood if he would speak to me about Laughton and he refused.

“But I happened to have my own first book Being An Actor with me so I went round to his house and dropped it through the letterbox, signed with an inscription to him.

“A few months passed but still nothing came of it. And then he died.

“When I went back to Los Angeles a while later to make a documentary about Laughton, I phoned the same number again and Isherwood’s partner Don Bachardy answered the phone.

“I said, ‘Hello, I’m an actor. My name’s Simon Callow…’ but Don stopped me there and said ‘I know exactly who you are. Christopher was reading your book for the second time when he died.’

“For me, as a writer, hearing those magic words, ‘for the second time’ – can you imagine how proud I felt?” Simon beams, rolling the memory happily around in his mind, then adds with a self-deprecating laugh: “Although maybe it just didn’t make sense the first time!”

Whether reading or writing them, Simon says he can’t imagine a life without books.

“I pick up books all the time,” he says. “I just love the whole notion of story, of narrative. And however ambitious or experimental it might be, there’s always a sense of bringing order to the world. Sometimes a challenging sort of order, but always order.”

It’s not hard to see why helping prisoners to read is of benefit to all society.

In addition to the sense of order it brings, the self-improvement gained from reading brings increased chances of employment, thereby lessening the likelihood of re-offending.

According to the Ministry of Justice, 57 percent of adults in prison have literacy skills below those expected of an 11-year-old.

As Simon rightly points out: “That’s why Give A Book is of such great benefit to all of us in this country.

“There are many ways in which people, and not just prisoners, feel excluded from society. The idea that some people have no access to books is just a terrible thought.”

He pauses, then adds: “Christmas is such a great opportunity to give books.”

Whether it’s Rupert the Bear or Charles Dickens, a book can be, as Simon puts it “a key that opens the world, even if only in your mind”. And what better Christmas
present could anyone wish for than that?

Traditional detective novels set during Christmas and with titles like Crimson Snow or Mystery In White are enjoying a remarkable resurgence. So here’s a seasonal riddle that might baffle Hercule Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey: why is the classic detective story enjoying such an astonishing revival? After all, literary snobs once reckoned the old-fashioned whodunit was as dead as a body in the library.

The so-called “Golden Age” of the twisty puzzle was between the First and Second World Wars, although books were written in that style long afterwards. Yet most of their authors sank into obscurity, Agatha Christie being the honourable exception.

Not long ago, Scandi-noir and domestic suspense were all the rage. They haven’t gone away, but today the crime writing scene is more diverse than ever.

The British Library has struck gold with its Crime Classics series, for which I’m the consultant. We feature long-forgotten books, some of them out of print for 70 years or more. With million-plus copies sold, the series – and its evocative vintage cover artwork – has inspired countless imitators. Short story collections such as Silent Nights, A Surprise For Christmas and The Christmas Card Crime showcase a wide variety of Yuletide mayhem.

Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery In White was a number one bestseller, while Anne Meredith’s bleak midwinter tale, Portrait Of A Murderer, far outsold the original first edition within a few weeks. Fans of traditional whodunits now have a rich supply of entertainment.

Writers like Richard Osman soar to the top of the charts by giving the vintage mystery a 21st-century makeover. Bestsellers by Anthony Horowitz and Janice Hallett pay homage to the Golden Age while offering contemporary thrills. For me, there are three key elements to a crime novel – people, place, and plot. Admittedly, some Golden Age writers paid more attention to mystification than characterisation, but they were often brilliant at structuring a story.

A finely crafted mystery puzzle is as satisfying as any skilfully composed work of art.

My own novels, especially the Gothic-tinged mysteries featuring the enigmatic Rachel Savernake, rejoice in the traditions of classic detection. Rachel is fascinated by bizarre murder mysteries and her wits are as sharp as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

Her latest case, Blackstone Fell, set in a remote Pennines village, includes a mystery of the past and a strange sequence of deaths at a sanatorium. There’s also a “Cluefinder” – a device popularised in the 1930s. At the end of the book, the clues to the puzzle are listed, with the pages where they appeared – so you can check your own detective skills!

Is nostalgia the reason why the literary landscape’s tectonic plates have shifted? Possibly. A good read is always revitalising, but classic crime isn’t just about comfort reading. The sheer range of the British Library Crime Classics collection is striking. And the storylines of books such as Mary Kelly’s The Christmas Egg are anything but cosy.

These books have become social documents of real historic interest.

Their authors may not have set out to write about the times in which they lived but unconsciously did just that. While devouring a marvellous vintage mystery, we can immerse ourselves in a long-lost world – and understand it better.

• Blackstone Fell by Martin Edwards (Head Of Zeus, £20) is out now. For free UK &P, visit expressbookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832

Four British Library classics

The White Priory Murders: A mystery for Christmas by Carter Dickson

Dickson’s newly-republished Golden Age tour de force showcases the tricks of the crime-writing trade. A Hollywood actress is found murdered in a lakeside pavilion. Only the footprints of the person who found her disturb the snow that fell overnight – and which stopped shortly after she was last seen alive.

So how did the murderer get in and out of the pavilion without leaving a trace? It’s another case for the cantankerous but brilliant Sir Henry Merrivale. In a “locked room mystery” of this kind, the murder seems miraculous. Concocting puzzles of this kind is as much of a treat for authors as for their readers.

The spoilt kill by Mary Kelly

This book won the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of 1961. The runner-up was John le Carré, which gives you an idea of the quality of Kelly’s writing.

The story is told by a private investigator, but the mean streets that Hedley Nicholson walks are in Staffordshire’s Black Country. Hired by a pottery business to look into a case of industrial espionage, he discovers a corpse in an “ark”, a brick-lined vault designed to hold liquid clay.

The structure of the story is as unorthodox as its setting. Nicholson returned in the poignant Due To A Death before Kelly abandoned him – and then gave up writing. Although she lived until 2017, her last novel appeared 40 years earlier.

Crook O’Lune by ECR Lorac

Carol Rivett, who wrote as ECR Lorac, was a prolific author whose books blipped off the radar after her death in 1958. Yet today she is one of the most popular of the Crime Classics authors.

A special thrill for me involved some personal detective work – discovering her never-before-seen typescript, Two-Way Murder, published for the very first time by the British Library last year. Her greatest strength was her vivid evocation of place and Crook O’Lune takes its title from a tourist spot in north Lancashire.

Her Det Insp Macdonald plans to retire and buy a farm in the area. However, Lorac never shrinks from the tough realities of country life.

Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand

A Golden Age cracker, this is a “fair play” story, with all the clues given to the reader. The book opens with a cast of eight characters, and we’re told that two of them will die and another is the killer. The case is investigated by two detectives, competing against each other.

This exuberant battle of wits culminates in a sequence of different possible solutions, presented with dizzying skill. An actress is murdered in plain sight during a pageant – but the crime seems impossible because nobody could have committed it. This is another audacious example of the “locked room mystery”.

• All available in the British Library Crime Classics series

Jeffrey Archer has been an avid reader since, as a small boy, his mother introduced him to Swallows And Amazons. “It’s a story with enduring appeal,” says Lord Archer today. “I was very lucky with my mother; parents are very important. If they just say, ‘Go and watch TV’ it’s very sad. Give a book and you get a person started.”

That is why the author, who counts himself lucky to have grown up in a book-reading household, is backing the Daily Express Christmas campaign in partnership with charity Give A Book.

The young Jeffrey progressed to Alice In Wonderland before his mother, Lola, a local newspaper columnist in their hometown of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, decided to take Jeffrey’s reading sessions in a new and unexpected direction.

“After Alice, slightly unusually, we went straight on to PG Wodehouse,” recalls the author with a chuckle. And this, he insists, is not the only strange fact concerning himself and the creator of Jeeves and Wooster.

“The two most popular authors in India are myself and Wodehouse. Kane And Abel has been read by 100 million people in India, and they just love PG Wodehouse,” he says.

He professes not to know what the connection might be between his bestselling title, which has sold more than 34 million copies worldwide, and the fictional creations of Sir Pelham Wodehouse. But when pressed, he suggests: “I think they equate me with being very British. In fact, I’m always surprised by how well my books sell abroad.”

Sharing books with his mother and grandmother, who was equally “big on reading”, led to a lifelong passion and eventually to his enduring and prolific career.

“I got lucky; my favourite master at school introduced me to Dickens,” he recalls. “A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, which is also set at Christmas, were the best of the lot.”

Even at 82, Lord Archer still holds himself to a relentless writing regime which takes place in two-hour increments throughout the day – he rattles off his routine at breakneck speed, with pride.

He’s currently working on a new title in his William Warwick series. Entitled Next In Line, it concerns an incident connected to Princess Diana that “did or didn’t happen – readers can make up their minds”, he says.

He continues: “To be honest, I’m frightened of stopping,” he says of a career that has seen his 42 titles sell in excess of 275 million copies. “I do it because I love it. I’d pack it all in and go and watch the football if I didn’t, and I’ll stop the day I don’t enjoy it. But if one gets an exciting idea you want to get on with it.”

He doesn’t understand people who want to stop working.

“We’re all living to great ages; retirement will soon be at the age of 75. In my father’s day, you got a gold watch at 65 and conveniently died at 70. I remember the mayor in Weston-super-Mare holding a tea party for a lady who had reached 100. Today, you’d be holding a tea party every day.”

However, he doubts he’ll make it to a century himself.

“So many friends have died that I just get up each day, look out of the window and say, ‘Great, I’m still alive’.” This statement is delivered in a joyful bellow. Lord Archer is a huge believer in getting books into the hands of those who need them the most, even when that involves lost royalties. “In India they steal my books,” he guffaws.

“They buy them in London the day they come out, and have them on the streets three days later at a third of the price.

“I don’t give a damn. It’s wonderful that people are able to get hold of them. I’d give away a million copies of Kane And Abel if I could give them to people who’d never read a book. Some would want to read more.”

He says that JK Rowling has done a “brilliant job” getting a whole generation reading. “Once you have readers, you try to pick up crumbs from the table as an author. If you can get to the young and capture them, they are yours.”

And, unlike some successful literary figures, he is always gracious to his fans. “Every writer should be painfully aware it’s a great honour to have your book read. You can Twitter away in a few seconds, or watch a film in 100 minutes, but it takes six hours to read a book. I’m always very grateful when someone says they’ve read my latest because they have invested a significant amount of time in it.” Fans, in his experience, come in “two extremes”.

“This weekend was typical. I sat between a lady and a gentleman. The lady said, ‘Jeffrey, I’ve read everything’,” he impersonates her swooning voice. “The chap said, ‘They tell me you’re a writer’.”

The power of books in the lives of those who need them the most is something that clearly fascinates him. His favourite book is Beware Of Pity by Stefan Zweig.

“An Indian lady came up to me and said, ‘You are my second favourite author’. I asked, of course, who her first author was, and since then I’ve read everything he wrote.” Was her assessment correct? He guffaws again: “I could never be as good as him. He was an Austrian Jew with an academic background and was a very fine scholar, as well as a fine storyteller.”

He adds: “I’ve long believed the secret of getting people to read is getting people to read, and what better way than giving a book? The greatest compliment an author can receive is, ‘Yours is the book I first read’.”

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT OUR CHRISTMAS CAUSE:

Give A Book puts books into the hands of those who need them most.

A £5 donation will provide one book; £10 will add a book bag; while £25 will give a whole book bundle. To support the Daily Express Christmas Campaign, please send donations (cheques only, payable to Give A Book) to: DX Give A Book Campaign, 112-114 Holland Park Avenue, London W11 4UA Or you can donate online via: giveabook.org.uk UK registered charity no 1149664.