FORMER Bridport news journalist Sarah Thompson is making history and proving she has style - with her first book published by Random House.

When she set out to write Style Council, her homage to the ex-council house, she didn't realise she'd be making publishing history.

She said: "I hadn't anticipated - naively I now realise - how a book based around the private ownership of former council housing would prompt such strong reactions.

"Having bought and fallen in love with my own ex-council house in Bridport in 2007, my aim was simply to celebrate the unsung charms of these homes."

But doing her research she met people who were against the idea.

There were those who thought she'd be adding to the gentrification of the ex-council house, those that thought she was glamorising the Right to Buy Act or suggesting council houses were a second-rate option.

She said: "So it seems that, inadvertently, I have created what must surely be a publishing first - a politically sensitive interiors book.

"I knew it was a very political hot potato but I just had to separate what I was trying to do from the politics of it all.

"How these houses came to be available isn't really anything to do with the book."

Neither is it a 'how to' or style guide but rather a celebration of their possibilities and maybe a way to inspire, she said.

Sarah studied history of art and architecture at university so was interested in 20th century architecture but had never done anything with it

She said: "Style Council is not about anything new but I do hope to inspire other people to embrace their ex-council house with enthusiasm."

When Sarah first sent her proposal for a book to traditional interiors publishers they liked the idea but rejected it as too costly to produce and too UK centric.

Then in a moment of inspiration she sent the idea to leading designer Wayne Hemingway, chairman of the South Coast Design Forum and chairman of Building For Life.

He emailed her back immediately and said he'd send it to publishers he'd worked with and that promoted Random House to take the project on.

He said: "I'd never met Sarah before she emailed me with her proposal for an interiors book about ex-council houses.

"When someone sends you an idea for a book about how a new generation are making ex-council stock highly desirable and says they have a (brilliant) idea to call it Style Council then your eyes light up."

The book includes ex-council homes in West Milton and Bridport as well as London, Sheffield, Scotland and Ireland.

Sarah is also about to go into print again with Penguin after an agent read her blog she writes with friend Alex Manson-Smith about motherhood - you'resomummy.com.

She said: "It is about the unexpected changes that happen to women when they become mothers that the books don't tell you."