Thank Meg and Mog for complete audiobooks

Once upon a time you could get readings of books on LPs. Each record would be no more than an hour long, which meant a single full length play by Shakespeare could span three or more discs. Once the audio cassette came in, you could carry the spoken word with you, always provided you remembered the Walkman personal stereo. Now of course you can carry hundreds of audiobooks on a device the size of a pack of cards. The space saving of an abridged version – a full length reading of A Christmas Carol (one of Dickens' shorter works) would straddle at least two cassettes – is now insignificant.

Apparently the growth of unabridged recordings was down to one person, Helen Nicholl, the writer of the Meg and Mog series.

When her mother became ill, she bought her an early Sony Walkman and an audio version of Jane Eyre. Appalled to discover it had been radically abridged, her mother refused to listen to it. So in 1983, with £15,000 of Meg and Mog royalties, Helen founded Cover to Cover, determined to produce unabridged classics. It became a ground-breaking audiobook company. She invited the actress Patricia Routledge to stay and they recorded the whole of Wuthering Heights in 10 days. With her insight into what pleased the young she concentrated on the A-level curriculum: "Teenagers don’t want the bother of reading Mansfield Park," she noted, "they would rather lie in bed and have it read to them."

She also coaxed Stephen Fry into reading the then unknown Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Rest in peace.