NEIL Rathmell's second book has just been published, nearly 50 years after his first.

'The Old School' was published by Faber & Faber in 1976. The publisher this time is Scarborough-based Valley Press.

'Dorothy' is the story of Neil's mother. Her life, he says, was typical of many working-class women of her generation in everything but its length.

He said: "She lived to be ninety-eight, born in 1917, losing her father to the Spanish flu epidemic after the First World War. Her life continued to be troubled in many ways. Her daughter, my elder sister, died when she was eleven and I was five. I've kept myself out of the story and based it entirely on things she told me, especially during the last ten years of her life, when we shared a house and I looked after her. The holidays we took together, especially a visit to India on her ninetieth birthday, are part of the story."

Valley Press publisher Jamie McGarry said: "Dorothy is a genuine work of art; a beautifully-observed, deeply-moving elegy with a profound sense of authenticity. Anyone who picks up this book will have a clearer understanding of the human condition by the time they put it down.”

Neil's own life, between the two books, has been divided between teaching and writing, both driven largely by his love of theatre, as both teacher and playwright. Some of his plays have been produced recently by Leeds Arts Centre at the Carriageworks Theatre. His short stories have been published in literary magazines in the UK and Ireland.

Now retired and living in Horsforth, where he grew up, he continues to write, encouraged by the publication of 'Dorothy' just a few days after his 76th birthday.

"It's never too late," he says, "especially when you have a mother who lived to be ninety-eight!"