On 19 November 1963, the case of McClory v Fleming, following up the 1961 case, was heard at the Chancery Division of the High Court. The proceedings lasted three weeks, during which time Fleming was unwell, suffering a heart attack as the case progressed. Two weeks after the case, during the weekly Tuesday staff conference at his employers, "The Sunday Times", Fleming suffered a serious, second heart attack that necessitated convalescence, which he undertook at the Dudley Hotel in Hove. While there, one of Fleming's friends, Duff Dunbar, gave him a copy of Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin" to read and suggested that he took the time to write up the bedtime story that Fleming used to tell his son Caspar each evening. Fleming attacked the project with gusto and wrote to his publisher, Michael Howard of Jonathan Cape, joking that "There is not a moment, even on the edge of the tomb, when I am not slaving for you".