A ROSYTH man forced to give up life on the rails is now on track for a new career as an author.

After working as a train driver for 34 years, Lawrence Grieve, 60, had to take early retirement in 2013 because of ill health and picked up his pen to return to a previous hobby.

After plucking up the confidence to sign up for an online creative writing course, he has not looked back and had his first book, The Keepers of Secrets, published in the summer.

He explained: “About three years ago, I came out of the closet – I was embarrassed about saying I wanted to be a writer but I thought I want to see this through.

“I started writing when I was about 14 and did it for a couple of years until someone said you have to go and work for a living.

“Once I retired, that’s when I started to come back to the idea.

“I wasn’t doing it for the sake of taking on a new job, it was pleasure and I started to write short stories."

The Keepers of Secrets takes Blair Richardson through his last two years at school.

His two close friends died in an accident there the year before and, through flashbacks, he examines his tense relationship with his parents during the miners' strike in 1974 and the 'love at first sight' when Debora moves in next door. 

But he soon discovers that almost everybody is holding a secret, and things are not quite what they seem to be. 

Lawrence added: “I did a creative writing course at Strathclyde University online and used to get good feedback and it grew out of that. The book I have written was a project to get me into the way of writing 30,000 words. I went back to school memories and stuff and just gradually built it up into the book.

“I never thought for one minute I was going to get that.

“I had taken on an editor and a proof reader and they helped me mould it into a book. I thought it would sit on the shelf for the next 40 years but I sent pieces of it away to a publisher and the first one I approached offered it to me.”

Dad-of-one Lawrence, of Primrose Avenue, is already thinking about his next book which he is due to begin writing in January.

The Keepers of Secrets is available for purchase in paperback through Amazon and through Kindle eBook.