Robert Carlyle insisted Hamish Macbeth smoke pot and said if he wasn’t allowed to smoke pot he’d quit
royalty payments, repeat fees and revenue from foreign sales from Hamish Macbeth.
And the choice of leading man left her fuming.
“Robert Carlyle is a very fine actor but I got fed up with the whole lot of them.
“He insisted that Hamish Macbeth smoked pot and said if he wasn’t allowed to smoke pot he’d leave the series.
“It wasn’t the way I saw it. They didn’t know whether to make it a Whisky Galore or a soap.
“And they refused to show my books at any press conference.
“I was very hurt by the whole thing – and I’m bitter because I’m a very resentful person.”
Jensen was widowed after the shock death of her husband Terence Beesley late last year.
He took his own life at the home they shared with their eight-yearold son.
Marion says she exchanged condolences but didn’t want to intrude and they ended up speaking about other matters.
She does, though, know all about the loneliness of losing the love of your life.
Journalist and author Harry collapsed and died in November 2016, aged 89, at a nursing home where he was recuperating after a fall.
His death left her bereft but while she had to face up to being on her own, she was determined that it wouldn’t drag her down.
“I’m very good at loneliness. As long as I have books I’m fine with living on my own.
“And having been a woman journalist I don’t mind going into pubs or restaurants myself. Or turning up at parties on my own. “I’m content now.”
But Marion has thought about her own future and how to make things easier for her son Charles.
“I have picked out my nursing home. There’s a very good one in Stow-on-the-wold – a bit like Downton Abbey with beautiful views of the Vale of Evesham.
“It’s very pricey but there are lots of activities and outings. I think I would prefer to hire carers first, though, and stay where I am as long as I can.
“I’ve thought ahead because I always thought it’d be terrible to inflict looking after a decaying mother on my son.”
Marion may have a screen favourite of her creations but says that’s not the case when writing.
“Agatha’s not the one I’m fondest of. You have to keep a detachment. When you fall in love with your character, it’s doomed.
“When I’m writing about Agatha I’m with her, when I’m writing about Hamish I’m back up in Sutherland where we used to have a croft.”