At the age of 80 Abergavenny-based author Shirley Phillips is set to publish her first novel.

‘Charlotte Aurora’ is an engaging and heart-warming tale centring on the lives of mountain sheep farmers and town market traders during the years of the Depression.

It will be Shirley’s third book in three years - and she’s expecting the sequel to be on the shelves by the end of this year as well.

“My first two books were memoirs of my nursing experiences. Charlotte Aurora is fictional, but the characters are based on people I’ve encountered during my lifetime and used in the context of the plots,” Shirley explained.

“One of my first jobs after leaving school, for example, was with a large open market. It opened my eyes to the way it functioned and the characters that worked it. I decided to write about them one day - and now I have!”

And Monkford Market in the book is really how she imagines Abergavenny Market would have been in the 1920s.

The story begins with the main character, Charlotte Aurora, arriving at Top Farm with Gabriel Brown, grandfather of one of the main characters, to begin life in the wilderness of Top Farm House and its farmland.

Charlotte is of aristocratic background and eventually brings a wealthy inheritance to Top Farm.

In the story she is a ghost who haunts Top Farm and influences good and bad events which occur.

Among the main characters are Owain and Isobel Brown who inherit the fortune she bequeathed to those who came after her. The novel focuses on their day-to-day lives during the Depression as they first meet and fall in love.

Shirley Phillips was herself born into a coal-mining family. Her late husband Derek was an army officer and she travelled the world with him.

When he retired from the army he became a consultant psychologist and Shirley worked for many years as a nurse, retiring in 2002.

Story writing had always been her hobby, as it was her husband’s. He encouraged her to attempt publication, which she did with his help. Sadly he died in 2013.

“I actually started writing Charlotte Aurora 15 years ago,” said Shirley.

“I asked Derek, who was a published author and story writer for the BBC, to read it in its rough form while I took my mother shopping one day.

“On my return, almost two hours later, he was still reading it. ‘What a beautiful story; it is so sensitive. You must try to get it published’, he said.

“But I was dedicated to my work at that time, as was he, and Charlotte Aurora was pushed to the back of my desk drawer until a year ago.

“By then Austin Macauley had already published two books I had written and I was delighted and surprised by their interest in it.”

Shirley says she loves writing and would encourage anyone to try it. And she proves the point that it’s never too late to chase your dreams.

She will be signing copies of her new book on Friday June 10 from 2.30pm at Abergavenny Library.