JOANNE ROWLING, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, returned to her former university yesterday to collect an honorary degree.
Miss Rowling, better known by her initials J K, was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by Exeter University for her books charting the exploits of the teenage wizard. The author, who graduated in 1986 after reading French, with Greek and German, told graduates: "I am a little worried because you are not all nine-year-olds, but you at the back do look as though you have come as wizards, which is comforting. I think this will always be the degree that means the most to me. It is a real honour to be back here under these circumstances, and frankly a shock."
Prof Peter Wiseman, who introduced Miss Rowling at the ceremony, said she had been a bookish child during her schooling in Chepstow and a day-dreaming student at Exeter. He told the audience how Christopher Little, her literary agent, had told her after she completed the first draft of the first Harry Potter book: "Now remember, Joanne, this is all very well, but it is not going to make your fortune."
Last year Miss Rowling earned an estimated £15 million, and last weekend hundreds of children queued until midnight to buy the first copies of her fourth book - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She urged the 250 graduates gathered in the University Great Hall to take risks and make mistakes. She said: "At my own graduation, I had very little experience of personal failure or regret, I am pleased to say. I made up for that the moment I left university.
"Nobody in their right minds takes pride in their talents. I didn't earn my vivid imagination - it has been as much a part of me as freckles and short sight. I hope you take some risks and make some splendidly useful mistakes so that these three years at Exeter don't turn out to be the happiest of your life - but I hope they do come close." Her father, Peter, and her stepmother, Janet, were at Exeter to see her receive the award. Mr Rowling said: "We are very proud of her and we had a marvellous day."