Last updated 12:33, Saturday, 03 May 2008

THE nation’s most unlikely bulimic is not the only one to profit from the surprising news of his eating disorder.

Kept trim: Hunter Davies ghost wrote the memoirs of John Prescott, above

While John Prescott looks forward to his life story shifting thousands of copies, his Cumbrian ghostwriter is also set to make a few bob from the venture.

Hunter Davies will reportedly take £80,000 of the £220,000 Prezza has pocketed for John Prescott: Pulling No Punches.

A decent sum, though some would say he earned it for sitting through countless hours with Two Jags. Davies, who was brought up in Carlisle and has a house near Cockermouth, has established himself as one of the country’s leading celebrity storytellers, filtering their words and adding some of his own so that the reader will hopefully not see the join.

In recent years Davies has been the mouthpiece of Wayne Rooney and Paul Gascoigne. His share of the pot for ghosting Gazza’s memoir four years ago was a little over 10 per cent, while it appears that he is taking more than one-third of Prescott’s cheque.

It remains to be seen whether Pulling No Punches will match Gazza’s bestseller status. Either way Davies is doing far better than most authors, 80 per cent of whom earn less than £20,000 a year.

The Cumbrian’s fee was revealed by the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire. Writing in New Statesman magazine, Maguire claims that Prescott – “the country’s most unsuccessful bulimic” – edited a great deal of fruity language from his memoirs. For the sake of sales, it is to be hoped that none of the man’s personality has been whitewashed away.