The former stomping ground of a regional journalist has provided the inspiration for his novel following the trials and tribulations of a junior reporter.

Colin Heathcote, who worked on the Berkhamsted Gazette for five years, has penned No Fires In Tring which features characters based on former colleagues, albeit with fictional pseudonyms.

The book follows 21-year-old Paul Barnes, who lands a reporting role at Hertfordshire Newspapers Ltd.

Real events covered by the Gazette feature in the plot – from council meetings to heroic canal rescues.

Said Colin: “Whilst the obtaining of the newspaper stories has been embellished for comic effect, the recorded articles in the book are as appeared in the Berkhamsted Gazette.

“The characters featured are based on people who worked for the company, although their names have been changed.

“The book helps reflect life on a rural local weekly newspaper in the mid to late 1960s; a world which has long since disappeared. Since those days many dozens of small weekly and regional daily papers in the UK have disappeared to be replaced by free papers, news web sites and information churning social media networks.”

Colin worked at the Gazette from 1966 to 1970 before going on to a career in local government public relations and later setting up as a freelance PR consultant.

He now lives in Northumberland, and is married with three children and a young granddaughter.

Colin added: “Compared to when I was a trainee, a career in weekly or regional newspaper journalism or photography is now, sadly, open to comparatively few young people as papers increasingly source their ‘news’ and pictures from the public and PR practitioners.”

No Fires In Tring is currently only available as a download via the Amazon web site.