POET Kevin Grant is celebrating this week after finally having his book of verses published after 62 years.
The former journalist launched Deeps and Shallows - Verse captions to a minor life, at Foyles Book Shop in London last month.
The 74-year-old who lives in Brunel Crescent is now hoping to release it in Swindon bookshops.
He said: "It was really a case of now or never.
"My writing has punctuated my life really and has never been a constant thing.
"I have dropped off my first copy at Swindon library and I'm hoping to launch it at Waterstones.
Mr Grant has written poetry since he was a schoolboy in the 1940s.
He threw himself into journalism and as a practising Catholic worked for religious publications The Universe and The Catholic Herald.
He said: "I have always been a journalist and only a passing poet writing verses here and there, scribbling away when I'm inspired.
"I have never sat down at a desk and set myself a target or writing three poems a day."
Deeps and Shallows is dedicated to Mr Grant's wife Maureen who died in 2004.
He said: "We had more than 40 years together and this is for her."
On page 37 is a poem about the loss of his wife called On the Death of my Maureen.
Mr Grant said: "Much of the book is written based on an emotional or thought-provoking event and that's the way it should be."
At the back of the book is a collection of limericks and rhymes called Nursery Versery written for his son James as a child.
Dotted among the poems are the author's memories of what the poem meant to him.
One, the Black Sheep Lullaby reads: No more songs, James, time to go to sleep.
You'll go to dreamland in a yellow Jeep'.
Mr Grant's note above the poems says: "Years later James told me that he used to wonder what a yellow Jeep was."
The book is available for £9.99 and is available to order in bookshops.
On the Death of my Maureen
I do. I will,
Shared Sacrament Divine,
Bone of my bone,
Two in one flesh; hers, mine.
But she, half flesh of mine
Is laid in earth
And I now half my flesh
Am half my worth.
The Dread in The Shed
There was a young fellow called Edward
Who feared that the Thing in the shed would
Spring out on his back
In a fearful attack
Hurting more than a smack on the head would.
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