Real-life Labour MP (Member of Parliament) John Stonehouse faked his own apparent suicide in exactly the same way as Reginald Perrin - in the summer of 1974 he left his clothes on a beach in Miami and disappeared. However this was pure coincidence: David Nobbs wrote his novel early in 1974, before Stonehouse disappeared (so Nobbs couldn't have based the novel on Stonehouse's disappearance) but the novel wasn't published until 1975, after Stonehouse went missing (so Stonehouse couldn't have go ...[Read Story ]