PETER Bleach is well on the way to telling his side of the story. He has secured a publisher and is already 30,000 words into his memoirs.

The former schoolboy at St Peter's in York, jailed for life in India after an illegal arms drop, was freed in February. He has always protested his innocence, insisting he was acting as an inside man for the British Government in a sting to trap terrorists.

Despite his horrendous ordeal in a Calcutta jail, Peter is in cheery mood when the Diary phones. He is holed up in a flat above a pub in Scarborough, spending eight hours a day on the book.

He has received no advance and will not confirm the name of the publisher, although the Diary understands it is a well-known firm.

Why the reluctance? "There are one or two people that would not like me writing this," he said.

Among them, he says, are certain Special Branch officers he contacted before the fateful arms drop - who then dropped him in it.

Soon after he returned to England he was visited by the Police Complaints Authority. "I was promised the Rolls-Royce of investigations," Peter said. "That's the last I saw or heard of them."

The Indian prison authorities are just as unlikely to be fans of the book: he accuses them of fraud. A former jail inspector in Zimbabwe, Peter said it was obvious that food and medical provisions for inmates were being sold outside the prison by the guards.

Writing the book is proving cathartic. "It's really to try and exorcise my own system of the last eight years," he said.

But he hopes his story will prove more riveting than some. "Autobiography is a dire genre," he admitted. "Some of the most awful crap is published as autobiographies."

For Peter Bleach on journalists, terrorism and Michael Howard, see the Diary next week.

THOUGHT you'd heard the last of the big cats? Think again.

A new sighting is reported tonight. Meanwhile, RW Freer writes from Bishopthorpe. For many years he was chairman of the now defunct York & District Field Naturalists Society, and received regular reports of strange plants, birds and animals. These all proved to be misidentified common British species. So he was "extremely sceptical of sightings of large cats in this country and used to consider them the product of someone's fevered imagination while walking home after numerous pints in the village pub".

Then, about two-and-a-half years ago, driving home from Gate Helmsley, he changed his mind.

"As I approached the junction with the lane to Warthill and Holtby, I saw a large, shadowy shape at the foot of the hedge...

"As it got closer the creature made a standing jump of about six feet and cleared the hedge easily. I got a very clear view as it was silhouetted by moonlight. It had a fairly square head, with a much shorter muzzle than a labrador.

"The body was about fifty per cent larger and more powerfully built than a labrador and the tail was quite thick and nearly as long as the body... This was definitely a large, black cat."

RW ends his letter: "Now where's that purring noise coming from. Oh, you naughty cat, Tiddles, you did give me a fright."

MEANWHILE, Mrs CM Flower of Horsman Avenue, York, was moved to verse by the "panther".

We haven't the space to reprint the entire poem, but here's a taste:

"'I tawt I taw' is not that funny

When it's dark out and not too sunny.

Panthers like jungles, so clear out the weeds!

Stick with nasturtiums and chrysanthemum seeds."

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 09:11 Friday, May 07, 2004