A former editor has published his memoirs to raise money for charity in memory of his late wife.

Peter White’s ‘I’m Glad I Did – The Hazy, Crazy Life of a Journalist’ covers his career, which included a spell as editor Birmingham-based Saturday evening football newspaper the Sports Argus.

He also freelanced for national titles and edited Isle of Wight magazines The Beacon and Island Life.

A donation from the sale of each book will be made to two cancer units on the island.

Peter told the Isle of Wight County Press: “My wife, Trish, died in 2011, aged just 53, following a long battle with the disease, and I have never forgotten the kindness and compassion shown by the nurses and staff in the chemotherapy unit and in the Breast Care Nurses Trust.”

Discussing the book, he added: “I have tried to make the book not about me, but give an insight into the wonderful, and not so wonderful people I have met and interviewed.

“There are tales about former Premier League football managers – including one who invited me into his office at 10am one Monday morning, to help him drink a bottle of whisky after he had been sacked.

“Then there’s the well-known British athlete who threatened to punch me on the nose at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, if I dared to ask him a question.

“I reveal why the Princess Royal was tested at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, and tell why a jockey mate told me not to have a bet on his Grand National ‘no-hoper’. There’s also the story of an Island man who was a prisoner of war in the Far East.

“Hopefully, some stories will make you smile, and others might result in wiping away a tear.”