Two women have returned to a Putney school to speak about how they achieved success in their respective fields.

Sophie Kinsella, real name Madeleine Wickham, visited Putney High School together with Sophie Raworth and met current pupils where they shared their stories.

Mrs Wickham is an author, best known for writing the ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ series which was later adapted into a romantic comedy film in 2009.

She said: “Being creative isn’t just inventing stories or making art, it’s so much of what people do in life.

“It’s about thinking of a really cleverly worded clause in a contract, or a solution to a logistics problem, or it’s being an entrepreneur and suddenly seeing a gap in the market.

“It’s something that we all do, and can do, and should do.”

Ms Raworth is a BBC broadcaster and has presented shows including Crimewatch, Watchdog and the Chelsea Flower show alongside BBC’s news programmes.

She said: “I kept out of the way of the ‘cool’ girls – the ones who seemed to exude huge amounts of confidence.

“One day, one of them said to me, ‘I’ve never heard you speak. All of these years later, you literally have to switch me off!’”

The visits are part of a series of guest appearances organised by Putney High School’s PIE + lecture series, which is also involved in the Putney Ideas Exchange (PIE).

It aims to bring in speakers from a range of fields to share their advice with pupils, and other notable speakers include philosopher AC Grayling and neuroscientist Henry Marsh.