A couple of weeks ago, Tom Bower was invited to speak to members of the National Union of Journalists who work for Express Newspapers.

But the man who has written a biography of the papers’ owner, Richard Desmond, was denied entry to the Express offices to speak to the NUJ chapel.

So the union has arranged for Bower to address a wider audience at a special event in its own London headquarters on World Press Freedom Day, 5 May*.

It was in 2005 that Bower finished work on his book about the proprietor - through his company, Northern & Shell - of the Daily Express, its Sunday stateblemate and the Daily Star titles. But the biography, Rough Trader, has never been published.

In 2009, Desmond launched a libel action against Bower over a passage about him in another book by Bowers, a biography of Conrad Black. Desmond lost the case and it was thought at the time it might lead to the Desmond book being published. It was not to be.

Now we await publication of Desmond’s autobiography, ghostwritten by the Sunday Express editor Martin Townsend, The Real Deal: the autobiography of Britain’s most controversial media mogul**.

It is blurbed on Amazon as “a brilliantly honest... no-holds-barred account of the highs and lows of Desmond’s long and illustrious career as a publisher and entrepreneur”.

It will touch on his early life as a rock and roll drummer, his first job as a classified ad salesman and “the meteoric rise of his media company” plus “his current plans for a massive property development and regeneration project”.

*The NUJ meeting will take place on Tuesday 5 May from 6.30pm (until 9pm). It will be staged at the NUJ’s London headquarters in Headland House, Gray’s Inn Road.

Bower will be one of a panel of speakers, although the others have yet to be named. Michelle Stanistreet, the unon’s general secretary, will be in the chair. All are welcome, but to reserve a free place, go here.

**To be published by Random House on 18 June.