Margaret Cook has told a magazine she did a "dreadful thing" in writing her memoirs about the couple's life together.

If she met her former husband now she would say "sorry", she said.

The book by Mrs Cook, A Slight and Delicate Creature, portrays her former husband as a heavy-drinking adulterer who compromised his principles for power.

Mr Cook left his long-standing wife at Heathrow airport prior to their annual holiday after the 1997 general election.

He subsequently married his mistress Gaynor Regan a month after he was divorced from Mrs Cook, whom he was married to for 28 years.

Robin and Gaynor Cook: Married last year

Mrs Cook told Woman's Own: "It's a dreadful thing to have done.

"There's part of me that says perhaps nobody deserves that - to have so much revealed about you, so much that's private and intimate.

"Lots of people get divorced nowadays and every marriage has its ups and downs, but when I was writing the book, and found myself revealing quite personal things, about me too, I was quite shocked and I thought: 'People will be shocked by this'."

'I suspect he's really angry'

Mrs Cook said: "But there's no point in regretting things you do under that sort of drive.

"I think if I was to regret it at all, it would have been these past few weeks.

"The reaction towards me has been by no means favourable."

Mrs Cook said she hoped she could become friends again with her former husband after exorcising all her bitter feelings.

She said: "If I met him tomorrow, I would say: 'Hi, how are you?' and all the rest of it. And: 'Sorry I've caused you all this discomfort'.

"I don't think he could quite react to me in that way at this moment in time. I suspect he feels really quite angry.