When I was eight years old, my brother, sister and I were given a storybook for Christmas. It was a beautifully illustrated, hardback version of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan. But the best thing about it was that the key characters in the story had been renamed after my siblings and I. My sister appeared instead of Wendy; I was Peter Pan; and my brother was Captain Hook. It is difficult to describe what it meant to us as young children to see ourselves in the pages of this classic tale. Suffice to say we begged that it was read to us most nights at bedtime for months afterwards.

Perhaps it was the happiness of this memory that inspired me to bid in a charity “immortality” auction years later. Whatever it was, in 2004 I found myself lighter of wallet and the proud owner of a character in a novel to be written by Adam Mars-Jones.

The auction was organised by the charity Freedom from Torture of which I had been a long-time supporter. Many of the authors, who included Martina Cole and Tracy Chevalier, were in the room on the day and the atmosphere was really exciting.

I hadn’t expected to get involved with the bidding but I guess I got caught up in the moment as it wasn’t long before I was joining in. I didn’t get too carried away – some characters went for thousands – but I felt extremely satisfied when the hammer went down and for about two months’ gym subscription, I knew that Luke Squires would be permanently etched in literary history.

Immediately after the auction Mars-Jones came to speak to me. I don’t remember much of what we talked about but I do recall at the end of the conversation he told me that having met me, he might change the character a bit. I have to confess that this made me slightly nervous – I wasn’t entirely sure what he had picked up on.

When the novel, which was called Pilcrow, was published in 2008, Mars-Jones sent me a beautiful hand-typed scroll, rolled up and sealed with candle wax and containing the excerpts featuring Squires. It was a beautiful document that he’d clearly put time and effort into and I was very grateful.

It turns out that the literary Squires is a precocious public school boy; he’s a super cool, self-assured rule breaker. In total contrast, I’m a married father of two working in the charity sector and, if I’m brutally honest, I’m pretty boring and straight-laced in comparison. It’s quite fun to know that I have a reckless literary alter-ego who gets caught up in all kinds of adventures.

As Mars-Jones himself has pointed out, I bought my literary immortality for a relatively small sum – and it’s certainly a less arduous way of striving for everlasting existence. For anyone else out there seeking an afterlife, I’d highly recommend it. Of course it’s important that people donate money to good causes and support causes they believe in, but if there’s something else to be gained as a result of giving, then that’s really the icing on the cake.

Freedom from Torture provide psychotherapy and other services to torture victims from around the world who seek refuge in the UK. They also use the evidence of the survivors they treat to lobby the UN and governments to end torture altogether. To be able to make a meaningful donation to that important work – and achieve eternal life in the process – is very pleasing.

Owing to the somewhat questionable antics of the Squires literary character though, it will be a quite a few years before I read Pilcrow to my own kids.

• This year’s auction takes place this Thursday, 20 November 2014. You can bid online on the Freedom from Torture website here