Alan Sillitoe in 2001

Birthday is the title of the sequel and as befits a major new release, the author, who now lives in London, is touring the country promoting his latest work.

He spoke to BBC Nottingham Online's Nigel Bell about the novel and the city of Nottingham.

Why wait so long to produce a sequel to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning?
There's no quick answer to that. All ideas take a long time to germinate. The publisher wanted more stories in the same style but I had so many other ideas I needed to work on first. But the life of Arthur Seaton had to be followed-up at some point. After all, unless a character is actually killed off his life never ends, the story goes on, so I was always going to return to it one day.

Sillitoe in his younger days with his trademark pipe

Why is now the right time to produce the follow-up?
I'm always making notes and keep them filed away. I finally found the right story to hang it on. So much time had elapsed that something had to have happened to Arthur and that gave me plenty of scope to develop the story.

Are you happy with the result?
I'm as happy as I can be but that's not to say I'm ruling out another follow-up.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning became a major film. What chance of Birthday following its success?
I would really like Birthday to become a film but I'm not sure anyone would be willing to invest in it. If they were, I'd certainly be interested in writing the screen play.

Find out what Alan Sillitoe thinks of Nottingham