The grieving husband of writer Dame Iris Murdoch has expressed his surprise at the £2m left in his wife's will, writes Paul Harris.

Prof John Bayley, who lives at the north Oxford home he shared with his wife, said he was astonished.

He said: "Really? Was it as much as that? I hadn't realised - that is surprising. We both had separate bank accounts and I had no idea how much money she had."

To be precise, the author, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, left £1,803,231.

The couple lived modestly, dining on sardines and baked beans. Prof Bayley watched as his wife's health deteriorated before her death.

He said: "I shall have to find out how hard it is to live without Iris. I have no experience of bereavement and I think it's quite common for it to get worse.

"I started off on a high because of the extraordinarily happy death Iris had, and the fact that I was with her. It was like watching an extremely beautiful bird fly off."

Story date: Tuesday 18 May

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