A former regional editor has published a comic novel inspired by her own days as a cub reporter.

Margery Hookings, 52, left, who was the first female editor of the Bridport and Lyme Regis News from 1999-2005, has written A Town Like This under her pen name of Maddie Grigg.

The plot centres on what happens when a know-all journalist from London arrives in the town of Broadhampton and tries to make a name for himself.

He is unprepared for the bizarre twists and turns that happen after royal newlyweds move into a nearby stately home.

The characters and stories are based on people and incidents that Margery has come across since training as a journalist in Plymouth in 1979.

“It’s a comic farce based on my early days as a local newspaper reporter in Bridport and, before that, Newton Abbot, during the early 1980s,” she said.

“A local newspaper office is a fertile breeding ground for the most amazing characters and situations. I’ve worked with some truly larger than life people and I’ve come across so many odd and interesting stories in over the years. I wanted to capture that sense of weirdness.”

The book, which is available on Amazon, has already been likened to Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue in places by one online reviewer.

“I like to tell a moralistic story with completely off-the-wall bells and whistles attached. I’m a surrealist at heart, living in a parallel universe, and hate injustice,” added Margery.

“The Tom Sharpe reference was great. I love his stuff and went to his house for tea once when he lived in Bridport.”

Margery began writing the novel in the late 1980s but the manuscript fell by the wayside.

Since then, she has done several creative writing courses as part of an Open University degree and has won or been shortlisted for several writing competitions.

She finished the book while living in Greece over the last year.

“The characters are an amalgam of people with whom I have worked and known over the years,” she said.

“There are three characters who are based on real people but two of them are dead and one of them is me. To be honest, one of them, sports reporter Roger Bailey, was far more colourful in real life.

“He is believed to be the Gunner ‘Plunger’ Bailey of Spike Milligan’s war memoirs.”

Margery has published the novel under the umbrella of The Bridport Press alongside two other Bridport writers Mitch Norman and Sean Geraghty who had both written novels some years ago which were inspired by West Dorset.

She also writes a blog, The World from My Window, which was chosen by Saga Magazine as one of the best by someone over 50.

Margery also published a novella, A Year in Lush Places: Tales from England’s Rural Underbelly, earlier this year

An event to launch all three books is being held next week at the Lyric Theatre, Bridport.

The books can be ordered from local bookshops or via www.feedaread.com.

For more information visit www.bridportpress.com