The enterprise was picked up by other newspapers, and tastefully embellished by yet more, until it reached the stage last week, when you couldn't open a newspaper without forming a mental picture of double-decker, luxury coaches packed with -rubber-necking tourists, barreling down the narrow Cotswold lanes or stationed outside the gates of Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet's £3.5 million 14th-century manor near Stow-on-the Wold. "We've been astounded by the fuss," says Mr Swan, standing in his kitchen. Over his right shoulder, in the far distance, I can see Bredon Hill, subject of AE Houseman's beautiful poem in A Shropshire Lad, and am transfixed by it. Mr Swan is a tall, polite, kindly man, but clearly struggling to come to terms with his unexpected celebrity.
"But it's got entirely out of proportion," he says. "We've got two minibuses booked for our Jillywood tour in June. That's all. But I could fill half a dozen with all the journalists and media people that have rung up about it." The telephone rings for the third time in five minutes and he visibly sags in despair. Even his Pyrenean mountain dog seems jittery.
Had he considered that he is himself now eligible for star billing on the Jillywood tour itinerary? (Question 1. (1936-) Name this Tirley Community Minibus Committee Member and Tirley's most famous resident. In latter years, mentally unstable. Complained continually of hearing ringing telephones. Drowned himself in village hall's new lavatories in 2006.)
Oh, he had indeed, he says, shaking his head in wonderment. We finish our coffee and with the sound of his telephone accompanying us to the front door, he hands me a Jillywood quiz paper and takes me out on my own -private tour preview.
As we motor through the dripping Cotswold countryside, I scan the quiz. Of the 24 locations listed, 10 are connected with famous people who are dead (including the poets Laurie Lee and Ivor Gurney, "Bomber" Harris, Sir Ralph Richardson and Nelly Shaw, the founder member of a local nudist colony based on Tolstoyan principles), three more are the homes of members of the Royal family (Charles, Anne, and Prince Michael of Kent), but only two - Liz Hurley's £2.7 million, eight-bedroom farmhouse and 72-acre estate just outside the village of Barnsley, and perhaps Jilly Cooper's chantry at Bisley - could incontrovertibly be said to have any connection with Hollywood.
And the tour not only doesn't stop at these places (the only stops are of the "comfort "variety) it doesn't even go past them.
Not that there's much to see at either place anyhow. We make a detour and stop outside the unpretentious wooden gates to Liz Hurley's house ("Private. Keep Out", says a sign in big red capitals) but the road leading up to the house disappears over one hill, reappears on a more distant one and finally disappears into woods on the distant horizon.
There's not even a gleam of a tiled roof among the trees. Then, feeling uncomfortably like a couple of voyeurs, we drive down to have a look at Jilly Cooper's house at Bisley.
The streets of Bisley are narrow in the extreme, far too narrow for anything like a minibus. Even if Jillytour punters wanted to get out and goggle at the house's exterior for a while, they would have to walk.
To Mr Swan's acute embarrassment, I walk across the gravel and bang on Jilly Cooper's front door, hoping that the author might enjoy hearing that she's mentioned in a Tirley Community Minibus Association tour quiz. But a very nice lady who isn't Jilly Cooper very politely says that Jilly is hard at work on a newspaper article and can't be disturbed.
Of course, there are so many celebrities living in the Cotswolds that if you threw a rolled up copy of Hello! up any of the village high streets, you'd probably hit one. There's Kate (Winslet) and husband Sam, and there's Hugh and Damian and Kate (Moss).
But celebrity is so cheap today, that the entire British countryside, from Cornwall to Cumbria, is positively throbbing with them. Call me old-fashioned, but one bona fide Hollywood star out of 24 Cotswold personalities on the tour, many of them brown bread, hardly warrants the title Jillywood and a media scrum, if you ask me.
We get back into the car. Whether graced by celebrities or not, the countryside in between these locations is intensely pretty, even on a soggy day at the end of a long winter. The ochre dry-stone walls are as satisfying to look on as completed jig-saw puzzles. And, though recently cut by mechanical flails, the wild blackthorn and hawthorn hedges bordering the road are as square and neat as topiary.
A six-hour tour of such attractive country ending at a pub is worth £8 of anybody's money. I sit back and enjoy. Sod the celebrities, I say.
....and here we go again in 2008!!They seek her here . . .
Pete Doherty, Damien Hirst, Kate Middleton - the Cotswolds is attracting some big names these days. Now, eager celebrity-spotters are signing up for a bus tour of the area, taking in the homes of its many star attractions, including Liz Hurley, a famous dead war poet, the inventor of the lawnmower and - the high point of the tour - author Jilly Cooper. Tanya Gold takes her seat for the Jillywood Experience
Tanya Gold stretches her legs while tour leader Derrick Swann consults his notes. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt
Deep in the Cotswolds, under a glowering grey sky, a gaggle of tourists are gazing up Jilly Cooper's drive. "Wonderful," says one. "Incredible," breathes the next. "It's only a gate," says a third and is hushed.
We are on the Jillywood Experience, a mini-bus adventure round the celebrity homes of the Cotswolds. It was established two years ago when some locals discovered that you can't swing a cow round here without banging into a supermodel carrying a sheepdog or an actor trying to run a pig farm. It is now Celebrity Central: Pete Doherty has been spotted; Damien Hirst is lurking and Kate Middleton apparently buys cheese in the Waitrose in Cirencester. But the Queen of this Studio 54 with tractors is Jilly Cooper.
And so, on a Saturday teatime, I bounce up to Derrick Swann, 71, a former teacher and the creator of Jillywood. "I am Mr Jillywood," he says. What inspired him? "I saw a film on TV about the tours of stars' homes in Beverly Hills," he says. "We had a minibus, beautiful countryside and all these celebrities in Gloucestershire. So I decided to put something together and have a mobile quiz on board to identify all our local celebrities." He says people have come from all over Britain and Jilly herself was once booked on the tour. "She had to cancel at the last minute," he explains. "But she's endorsed it." Derrick says he considered calling the tour "Hurleywood", after Liz Hurley, another famous local, but Jilly won out in this celebrity death match. "Jilly is so loved here," Derrick explains, "because of her Save the Badger campaign."
We troop on to the minibus, where I meet Pat the minibus driver and my fellow Jilly fans - Margaret, Doreen, Cheryl, Eve, Shirley and Margaret. "Seat-belts everybody, please," says Pat and, shrieking with excitement, we set off.
I probe the others about their Jilly love. Margaret doesn't read Jilly, because she lives in Florida, "and they aren't available in Florida". Doreen reads Jilly novels occasionally, she says, "but I'm not sure why". Margaret asks: "Wasn't she on that train which had an accident near Paddington?" "Yes, she was," says Doreen, and they start talking about it. The other Margaret started a Jilly novel once, she says, "but I had to put it down". Why? "Because of everything they got up to with those horses," she says. "I'm a bit old for that". For what? "The sex part." The bus is divided on Jilly. Half of us think she is a moral desert. The other half thinks she is a queen.
"The tour is about 70 miles," says Derrick, handing us each a map dotted with numbers and a bright blue pen that says "Jillywood". The clues refer to the celebrities whose houses we are passing. "Our first celebrity," says Derrick happily, "is dead." Dead? As one, the minibus pouts at Derrick. "I said dead or alive," he insists. "He was one of the Great War poets, he lived his life in a disturbed mental state and he died of tuberculosis in 1937 in the City of London mental hospital. Who is it?" The bus is silent. When we booked for Jillywood we were thinking glamour, glory and glitz. We weren't thinking mad, institutionalised and dead. It clearly isn't Jilly Cooper. Is it Barry Manilow? "Ivor Gurney," says Derrick, triumphantly. "The Ivor Gurney."
As I try not to hate him, Derrick tells me of exciting celebrity feedback to the Jillywood phenomenon. Apparently, Jeremy Clarkson, the star of Top Gear, threatened to murder Jillywood with a shotgun if they ventured down his drive. The celebrity gardener Dom Joly was friendlier - for a £10 fee he offered to appear nude. But in Jillywood it is only Jilly who matters. As I study the map I spot villages named after characters in her novels. There is a France Lynch, named after Ricky France-Lynch, the heartbroken polo player in Polo. There is a Driffield (the miserly rider in Riders) and a Bussage (named after Rannaldini's sex-crazed secretary in Score!) I find this terribly exciting and then wonder - is it sad that I know this? Is it wrong?
"We're coming up to the A40," says Derrick, thoughtfully. "The infamous A40." I peer through the gloom. It's a road. Then he points out accident blackspots as in: "There are often accidents on this road. It's an accident black spot." The bus goes a bit quiet. Then Doreen starts talking about llamas. "The woman four doors away from me has all these alpacas," she says, "and a llama who keeps them in check if they have a confrontation with each other."
At last we approach Bisley, the home of Jilly - "journalist, writer and media superstar" - shouts Derrick. To honour her we do something we won't do for every celebrity home - we get out of the bus. We wander down a hill full of pretty pale houses. I feel very happy. I am always happy when I am near Jilly Cooper. Then we get lost. We can't find it. Where is it? Has it been taken up? We argue, and complain, and at last we find Jilly's gate. "Beware of the dog," says a sign, even though Jilly is famous for buying dogs that don't even like biting food. "Enter at your own risk."
We gaze at Jilly's gate. A few of us touch it. Derrick mentions that one time in Bisley, a couple were so dazzled by Jilly's perimeter fence that they lagged behind and missed the mini-bus. "It was very funny," he says, as we melt away. On the way back, we pass a local, who is standing and staring at us the same way a cat might stare at a fully armed Klingon. "Have you seen Jilly?" I ask. He pauses. Then he says, reluctantly, and very quietly: "I have seen her. I have seen her walk the dog. And her husband drinks in the pub." And we re-board the bus. "I think her books are rubbish," says Eve.
We trundle on, feeling ever more pleased with ourselves, to Brinscombe. "Our Brinscombe celebrity was a mechanic who invented the lawnmower," says Derrick, robotically. "He died in 1846. Does anyone know his name?" Nobody does. "Edwin Budding," says Derrick. "The Edwin Budding."
I take issue with Derrick about this. Edwin Budding is not a celebrity in this or any universe. He is a spanner inventor. But there is a modern celebrity context to Brinscombe. Damien Hirst has apparently rented one of the outbuildings for his "art work". I tell the minibus about Hirst's work. They are gratifyingly disgusted and Margaret stops talking to Doreen about mince pies to squeak in outrage. Then we head for Minchinhampton, the birthplace of the novelist Joanna Trollope. "A good friend of Jilly Cooper," notes Derrick happily. "She was made deputy lieutenant of the county in 2002." We stare out at the roads Joanna might have wandered as a child. It is affluent. Even the cowsheds have For Sale signs saying "Hamptons International".
The darkness is growing in every way - we are approaching Liz Hurley's house. I am a bit obsessed with her because I once followed her diet - it's one almond every six weeks - and almost died of malnutrition and rage. I briefly wonder if her house is thin. "We saw her once," says Derrick. "She was returning from some sort of event in London and as we were pulling away from her gate her Mercedes pulled up and we could see it was absolutely Liz Hurley." Did she wave? "No. But it was the definite high point of the Jillywood tour ever. It was," he pauses and his chest expands, "fate." We pull up outside the property and examine the area - there is a field, a gate that may be electrified (what a way to die!) and an intercom with buttons saying "House", "Office" and "Cancel". I cannot see the house but if I press cancel, will Liz be cancelled?
I chuck a fag butt over the wall (in retribution for the diet) and then I ring the bell. I really do. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Liz Hurley answers. "Hello," it shrieks. "Hello," I say. "I am with the Jillywood celebrity tour of the Cotswolds and we were wondering if Liz Hurley will come and have her photograph taken with us." There is a long pause - longer, even, than Liz's giraffe-like neck - and then the voice that sounds suspiciously like her replies: "So sorry, she's not here. She's abroad. Sorry." The "sorry" comes out as a mad bray. I feel it was Liz speaking and I am so happy that she is in on a Saturday night. Unlike me. I am spending my Saturday night traversing the perimeter of her property in a minibus.
We are not going to Highgrove, Prince Charles's house, says Derrick, "because of the time factor". I am sad about this; I want to see the Royal Stumpery - it is apparently a tree-root leisure feature in his garden. But when we pass through the village of Avening we will be near Princess Anne's home, Gatcombe Park. "It is to the south-west," says Derrick. So somewhere nearby is Princess Anne's jewellery collection, by far the most interesting thing about her.
We are now very tired but keep awake by playing a game called Which Waitrose Does Jilly Cooper Shop In and What Does She Buy? I nail Jimi Hendrix for a local when I should have said Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Cheltenham, Derrick explains, is rather good for celebs - Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards was born here, along with the composer Gustav Holst, the actor Sir Ralph Richardson, and Bomber Harris (was he a celebrity?) Our final (dead) Cheltenham celebrity was "England 's first sporting hero - a champion jockey for 13 consecutive years who shot himself at the age of 29". Although we are sorry this celebrity shot himself, nobody knows who he is. Derrick mutters, "Fred Archer - the Fred Archer" and throws his notes to the floor, saying he's giving himself the sack.
As the bus trundles into Gloucester - they have agreed to drop me at a world-famous chip shop so I can eat world-famous chips - I decide it has been a beautiful experience despite the high dead-celebrity count. It is like an anamatronic version of Heat, with gardens. Perhaps Derrick should organise celebrity tours of other locales - Streatham, Penge, Norbury? But I sense in him a faint regret, an ambivalence about the Jillywood Tour. "After all," he says, "they come down to Gloucestershire to get away from us." Us? Surely they love us - we came forth to worship. We gave up our Saturday night. Derrick peers at me and sucks his Jillywood pen: "I mean you."
· To book the Jillywood Tour call 01452 781055