North Derbyshire dad dedicates first book to 'the most amazing, talented, brave and beautiful wife and daughter a chap could wish for'

Simon Hucknall beat the boredom of long-term sick leave by illustrating a story he wrote years ago which has just been published under the title, Malcolm The Poo.

His book is dedicated to wife Vicki and their daughter, Jessica, describing them as “the most amazing, talented, brave and beautiful wife and daughter a chap could wish for."

Simon, of Green Lane, Dronfield said: “The main driving force behind the book is my wife. She absolutely loved the story from the moment she read it and said that I should try and do something with it.”

Jessica, who is now 12, was just three years old when Simon wrote the story for her. He said: “I wrote quite a few but this one she particularly liked.

"I thought that writing for young kids, the story should sound a bit silly but something that has meaning and maybe a life lesson behind it. Malcolm isn’t happy, he doesn’t have any friends so he goes on some adventures and eventually finds a place for himself and finds some friends. The story is about not giving up and finding a purpose….everybody has a reason and everybody is special.”

Simon, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease 30 years ago, has ankylosing spondilitis which is a degenerative arthritis that causes the bones of his spine to fuse. He said: “I’m only really comfortable if I keep moving around or I’m laid down. I was an office based worker at CSC in Chesterfield but I can’t sit for long periods of time without seizing up – I’ve been on long-term sick for three years.

"A few months ago, I was at home and bored so I downloaded some free digital art software onto my pc to do the illustrations for the book. It was a massive learning curve. Trying to come up with ideas for the pictures was hard – some of them took a lot of thinking about and working out how to visually describe what was written on the page. For the last four or five pages, I went off to a quiet cottage in Wales to get it finished.”

The heart-warming and humorous picture book is aimed at children aged 3 to 7 years and is self-published through Amazon. Simon, 50, said: “You write the book, upload it to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), they check it over to make sure everything is acceptable within their sizes and fonts and if it is, it will appear on the site. If someone orders it, they print it. You don’t have the usual financial outlay of lots of copies of your book. When I found out about that, it gave me the impetus to have a go at it.

"I’m pleased with the result and the feedback has been brilliant.

"I’m working on two more and in the process of editing them at the moment. I’m initially going to send them to a literary agent and try to go down that route to the major publishing houses.”

Malcolm The Poo is available from Amazon, priced £8.99.