THREE grandparents have teamed up to launch a new series of books to help stories be told to grandchildren.

The initial set of Lyme Regis-based animal adventure books will be available by Easter and will only be sold in the coastal town.

Artist David Austin, editor Jill Newton and writer Geoff Baker have published seven books – specifically created to be read by grandparents to their grandchildren.

The books tell the adventures of Sandy The Wonder Pig, a guinea pig who lives in the town with his pals Hubert the Hedge Pig, That Dog and Zee Gull – a seagull from France who cannot speak English properly.

Geoff, 60, went to Woodroffe School with David and Jill in the 1970s.

He said: “Grandparents can play a good role in helping our grandchildren to learn to read because we tend to have more time and we’ve done it before with our grandchildren’s own mums or dads.

“Grandparents also tend to be quite good at the funny voices and these books have been deliberately written for voices because that makes it more fun for the children to hear and more fun for the grandparent to read.

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

“I wanted to write something that was fun to read because I used to hate reading bedtime stories that said ‘ahh, look at the little lamb, he is in the field’ or ‘this is the cat, she likes milk’ – they were so tedious that you never knew who would go to sleep first, my children or me.”

The stories have been kept on the backburner for three years after publishers told Geoff that the idea of writing books specifically for grandparents to read to grandchildren was ludicrous and it would never catch on.

Geoff said: “As professional publishers are legendary for always being right, we’re only printing around 100 copies initially, so it will not be the end of our world if they don’t sell.

“I’ve known Dave for more than 50 years and he’s always been a great artist, he’s brought Sandy’s gang to life in his pictures. Dave and I went to Woodroffe with Jill. She has had a successful career as an editor so she knew how to perfectly design the books, and we realised that between us, with a leg-up from Adrian Wood at Advantage Digital Print, we could be our own publishers.

“We’re just going to sell the books in Lyme because they are set in Lyme, we’re all from Lyme and because the real-life Sandy who inspired the books also lived in Lyme. Hopefully, one or two grandparents visiting or living in Lyme may like them.”

The limited first edition of the books will be available at Serendip and Pug and Puffin at Easter.