A book by a former newspaper reporter is to be published nine years after his death and 30 years after he started writing it.

Donald Mulcock worked as a reporter at the Salisbury Journal and the Western Gazette in the 1980s.

He wrote court reports for the newspapers and had a regular column called ‘Curious Salisbury’.

He had been working on the book about the life and works of Dr John Snow, leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene since the mid-1970s.

The book is called The Man Whose Skill Saved Millions and has been completed by Donald’s nephew David Honeywell, who is also a journalist and writer.

Said David: “Donald died in 2002 aged 82, but I didn’t want all his hard work to have been wasted so I set out on a mission to complete it.

“There was no ending or references so I did some sleuthing and continued where he’d left off.”

According to David, Donald always regretted never completing the book which takes the reader back to Dr Snow’s early childhood in York, which was also Mr Mulcock’s home town. It follows the doctor’s rise to becoming one of the most influential surgeons in history.

During Donald’s 50-year career, he gained the Fellowship of the Royal Anthropological Institute for his research on the Veda Men tribe of Solon, worked for Barnardos as a child psychologist and wrote hundreds of articles for the Salisbury Medical Journal.

He achieved degrees in law, anatomy and physiology, a psychology diploma and a postgraduate diploma in medical history – the last of these after he retired.

The Man Whose Skill Saved Millions will be available as an ebook, with several hundred copies also available in print.