2000: At the UN's Millennium General Assembly, Cherie, having been refused permission to take her nanny, has to leave baby Leo in the care of André, her hairdresser...

During the entire trip, whenever I had to be somewhere else, André looked after him: changed his nappies, gave him his bottle of expressed milk, everything.

We were staying in the UN Plaza Hotel ... I was late returning to the room, a circumstance with which André was all too familiar. The baby bag was packed and Leo was strapped to his front in the sling when two FBI men arrived at the door. They told him to bring the baby; Mrs Blair would meet him at the destination. More than a little unnerved, he was ushered into a limousine ... and off they set. Then, disaster. Leo filled his nappy. Worst of all, it was of the explosive variety and André had forgotten to pack an extra set of clothes.

“Excuse me,” he said to the secret serviceman beside the driver. “I have a problem.” The bodyguard was totally unfazed and seconds later, André says, they screeched to a halt. The door opened and he was ushered out, Leo still strapped to his front, to find himself being escorted into Ralph Lauren. “My!” said the greeter - the place had been completely cleared of customers - “You must be important!” Then the penny dropped. “Oh my God, it's Baby Blair!”

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Multimedia

• Full coverage: Cherie Blair autobiography

Background

• My complex life in Downing Street

• Secrecy and sadness behind memoir

• Leo: my miracle baby at 45 (and yes, he did have the MMR jab)

• The night I hated Tony

Background

• Miscarriage: ‘I'm afraid the baby's dead, Mrs Blair'

• The Queen and I: relations with the royals

• Cherie Blair's face-off with Campbell over Caplin

• Peter Foster and the ‘scandal' that never was

Next stop the Waldorf Hotel, where he was assured that I would be waiting. He was taken ... up to the presidential suite on the top floor, which was bristling, he says, with bodyguards, earpieces and mobile phones.

“The President will see you now,” he was told, and the door was held open.

“What about Mrs Blair?”

“She's not here yet. You're to go on in.”

He was petrified. Making his way down the empty corridor, he began calling out, “Hello? Hello? Anybody there?”

“In here,” came the reply, and André pushed open the door ... to see Bill and Hillary at the far end of a room the size of a tennis court.

I arrived about five minutes later, to find Bill holding Leo and generally cooing, although my son's red face showed that he had clearly been exercising his lungs until very recently.

André gave me one of his looks. “Cherie,” he hissed. “Don't you ever do that to me again.”

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