David Thomas was a father of three and a West Ham fan, with a fabulously blokey record collection, but always struggled with being a man. Now, at last, he has decided to transition. Ahead of his new column starting next week, he tells Mick Brown about his struggles with his gender

I have known David Thomas for probably 25 years. Known, that is, in the way one gets to know people who work in the same field. We have met a few times over the years, exchanged one or two emails; we have mutual friends.

As a fellow journalist, I read his profiles and opinion pieces for national newspapers, including the Telegraph, although I’ve not read the thrillers he has been writing in recent years under the pseudonym of Tom Cain.

I had a vague awareness that he was married with children. If you had asked me who of my acquaintances was most likely to undergo the transition from male to female, I would probably have put David Thomas somewhere towards the bottom of my list. And so, it turns out, I have never really known David Thomas at all.

Thomas, who is 60, has been in transition for the past three years. He has told some people, not told others – not, until now, as it were, ‘gone public’.