Eric Hammond, 75, a retired builder from Upminster, was the first in the five-hour queue for Hillary Rodham Clinton's autograph yesterday afternoon.

Like many of the 500-strong crowd outside Waterstones in Piccadilly, London, he was there because he thought Senator Clinton would be the first woman president of the US. He also, like several others, dabbled in the old British habit of collecting autographed books and keeping them in a box under the stairs.

"A hardback signed by Senator Clinton might be worth £50 - £60 one day," he advised. "Plus I've been telling people Hillary and I are having an affair and it's the only way we can meet," he muttered - to the alarm of a young girl called Scarlett from Tennessee who had travelled from Knightsbridge because the former first lady was a "strong, brave woman".

"If she is going to be president," said Mr Hammond, "I'm here to tell her no more wars."

Living History, Hillary's £5m memoir of her life with Bill Clinton and his relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky, is the fastest-selling non-fiction book in history, shifting 200,000 copies on its first day of sales in the US and selling around 20,000 in the UK so far.

The big dilemma for the throng of political autograph collectors - who had already gathered the hurried scrawls of Colin Powell, Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher - was whether to display the signed book next to their copies of Monica Lewinsky's Monica's Story signed at Harrods four years ago.

The solution, suggested Mike Bicknell, a businessman from Wokingham, was to put the first Gulf war's Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf in the middle. "He signed in a very aggressive way and just wrote Schwarzkopf."

When Mrs Clinton arrived, smiling from ear to ear in a navy suit, she seemed determined to outdo Ms Lewinsky, who was estimated to have averaged eight book signings a minute before, it was rumoured, needing a break because she was overrun by tears.

Mrs Clinton promised her team she could sign 700 books in 90 minutes, while telling each fan "Thank you so much for coming. How are you?"

Hopefully she missed the handful of people in front of Waterstones in London who had fallen asleep with her book in their hand while waiting.

On Saturday, the Clinton roadshow will decamp to Borders, Oxford, where the couple will meet their daughter, Chelsea, before flying back to Washington.

One man who was left delighted by Mrs Clinton's visit was Yantao Zheng, from Beijing, a former adviser to the Chinese government.

"I bought a copy of the book here, even though it was half the price on Amazon, because today is a special day. The UK had Margaret Thatcher and I think the US is now ready for a woman president.

"Bill Clinton will be the first First Man - the Americans love anything new. I have a good feeling about Hillary running in 2008 - that's the year China hosts the Olympics and the number eight is a very lucky number in Asia.

"She needs to know the significance of this and I was here to tell her."