The early childhood experiences of former Chester Cottage resident Cecil Browne has encouraged him to pen a series of short stories, in what he hopes would be the first of many books.{{more}}

The High Wycombe, England resident last week launched his book “The Moon is Following Me” here in St. Vincent, which features six short stories, loosely based around his early life in the countryside before he left for England in 1970 at the age of 13.

“They’re stories about village life in the sixties and seventies,” Browne told SEARCHLIGHT on Thursday. “It will give people an idea of what life used to be like.”

The Math lecturer at Uxbridge College in Middlesex said that his pleasure in telling stories and writing motivated him to put the stories together, and eventually publishing the book in March this year, after more than two years of consideration.

The stories, he said, have some element of truth to them, with the exception of what he considers his personal favorite ‘Taste for Freedom’.

“Taste for Freedom is an attempt to explore what life might have been like just after emancipation, (for one slave who lived on a plantation).”

The other stories are the book’s title story, “The moon is following me”; “Take for two”, “Spanish Ladies”, “First, Second, First, Third” and “Action Action”.

Browne said that response to the publication has been overwhelming in the United Kingdom, especially among Vincentian and other West Indian readers.

He said he hopes that his venture will encourage other locals to follow suit and become authors as well.

“One of my aims is to get more people to write; to get them to put on to paper their own stories, to get the old manuscripts from under the bed and put them into book form.”(JJ)