IN THIS year of commemorations marking the start of the First World War Times journalist John Hutchins has released his first novel — a fitting reminder of the horrors of war but also a tale of hope and faith!

As a reporter John has had his words in print for decades but it's a different kettle of fish writing a novel... tonight (Thursday) the delighted but slightly daunted John launches 'The Carved Angel' at the Plymouth Athenaeum.

The book has been nine years in the making. It started as a short story written at a creative writing group John attended when he worked at the Falmouth Packet newspaper.

He recalled: 'I was at an evening class and the tutor put some objects on the desk to inspire us. One was a little silver shovel — a Cornish shovel — and I thought about who would use a shovel, maybe a miner or a soldier or a grave digger.

'I wrote two sides of A4 and entitled the story 'The Grave Digger' deciding my main character would be a coal miner and a soldier — that was when Tommy Wagstaff was born.'

Over the years, with much encouragement from West Devon author Ted Sherrell, that original idea became an 18,000 word 'novella', which in turn led to a 54,000 word novel and John is justly proud of his first publication which has been enhanced by the drawings of Jane Andrew who also worked with him on 'The Packet'.

As the story emerges, Tommy, who worked down the mines of a North Yorkshire village from the age of 14, enlists, three years later, into the army during WWI. Seeing his best friend blown up in an explosion next to him in the trenches, Tommy ignores all the dangers of warfare around him and buries his dead comrade in no man's land.

This caring action becomes his purpose — to give friend and foe alike a Christian burial, his only protection being a carved angel made for him by his father (hence the change of title of the book). It is almost a mania, which at the same time offers Tommy some solace from the horrors of the battlefields and trenches.

Even on returning to his home village Tommy's prayers still seem unanswered and there remains something missing within him, but once again the little carved angel miraculously appears to come to his aid.

John said that Tommy would now be described as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder but in those days it would be described as shell shock or even cowardice.

'Tommy is a simple, hard-working, God-fearing working miner who finds himself in hell,' he said. 'Although his actions were perceived as unusual and at the time they called him "Loony Wagstaff", he saw it has his purpose to bury the dead,' said John.

John has a great fascination with the First World War and the miner was partly inspired by his own maternal great grandfather, John (known as Jack), who worked at Morwellham and Gawton Mine. Research was also carried out through the Beamish Museum in Northumberland for factual information about mining in the north of England.

The book talks about Tommy and his best friend Bert's at an Army boot camp on the North Yorkshire Moors, and how they were suffering from malnutrition. John used his grandfather Joseph's experiences of army training in Wales where the soldiers were often so hungry, because their food was stolen by their own quartermaster to sell on for his own profit, they dug up turnips from the ground and ate them raw.

His grandfather, who lived in Bere Alston, suffered from a stomach ulcer and contracted TB and was invalided out of the army. He died from stomach problems in 1968 still suffering the effects of the First World War.

'The book is about how the war affected people and their families long after it was over,' said John. 'It shaped us all. Every family, high and low, suffered some form of loss.'

It was John's desire to see the book finished and released in this special memorial year and he said he hoped people would continue to mark WWI: 'There are some people who say we should put it all behind us and we should not dwell on the past — I don't, I think that it is important the younger generation knows what happened.

'We should stand in the shoes of our ancestors and think of the horror and the waste and make sure it never happens again. Unfortunately human beings do not always learn from their mistakes but in this book there is a lot of hope and faith that eventually the human spirit for good will prevail.

'It is as much an uplifting story as one that describes some of the horrors and it still has, I hope, a lot of humour in it. I want people to embrace the ending. I will leave it to the reader to judge.'

The book launch at the Plymouth Athenaeum tonight at 7.30pm, where John will be reading excerpts from 'The Carved Angel', is open to anyone. A book signing will take place at Bookstop in Tavistock on Friday, November 7 from 11am to 1pm.

The Carved Angel is published by United Writers Publications Ltd and is available at Bookstop, Waterstones, on Amazon at the Tavistock Times office in Brook Street. ISBN 978 —1—85200—171—1.