Two former journalists from a regional daily have joined forces to write a book about another journalist who wrote daily letters home while serving in the Second World War.

David Chadwick, a former reporter at The Bolton News, was approached by ex-colleague Shirley Morgan, who is now a freelance business journalist, to help write High Seas to Home: Daily Dispatches from a Frigate at War.

The book tells the tale of newspaper journalist Cliff Greenwood, who worked at the Blackpool Gazette, and his almost daily letters home to his wife Violet while serving in the Royal Navy.

David, who now runs a freelance PR agency in Bolton, used his expertise and fascination with maritime history to help write the book, including deciphering the meaning of nautical terms contained within the letters.

The book came about after Cliff’s daughter Sue read the account of her father’s actions during the war in the letters and her husband Allan Seabridge, who is a co-author for the book, decided they should be available for more people to read.

David said: “Cliff started off as a person who was the father of someone I knew, but over a period of time became a really vivid individual whose likes, dislikes and personality became clear.

“I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in writing this book. It was a pleasure.”

Cliff, who died in the 1960s, wrote the letters from his training camps and from the frigate HMS Byron which carried out escort duties in the North Atlantic.

They were mainly written in pencil so it was easier for censors to rub things out.

The book, which is published by DB Publishing, is available from Amazon.