The other lunchtime, Peter Beck phoned me. 

Prof Peter J Beck, the late much missed Tony Kremer and I were in at the start of the Wells in Woking celebrations back in  2016.

Peter told me that the previous night Eric Jukes, treasurer of The Wells Society, had contacted him, concerned about Wells’ house at 141 Maybury Road. 

A member of the society had visited the house, where Wells wrote The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man, and reported it as being in “a sad state of repairs and had a repossession order stuck to the inside of the  front window”.  

I reported the telephone conversation to my lunch guest who told me he had recently watched on television an episode of Flog It! in which “Paul Martin is on the trail of Martians in Woking”.

Flog It! is no longer around, apart from re-showing on daytime television. I believe it is the episode in which Martin interviewed Peter Beck.

Photographs of number 141, which Peter took, show the now dilapidated state of the house and the blue plaque still in position, and the notice in the window showing that bailiffs “had entered... and took back possession of the premises for the claimant.”

These “premises” are part of Woking’s history: Wells in Woking became international, sparking a great deal of interest around the world. We must not let this building be flogged off!