IT was by a twist of fate that Julie Saunders became a librarian at Stourport and started writing books with her husband Dave.

She had been an art teacher for many years, but when she applied to work in Hereford and Worcester she found they had introduced a "ring-fence" scheme whereby only current teachers in the two counties could find jobs there.

So Mrs Saunders joined Stourport Library as information and children's librarian 11 years ago to make use of the second part of her degree.

She studied at the College of Librarianship in Birmingham and then attended a teacher training college.

And 10 years ago, her first book was published, again, as she says, by a "freak of fortune".

A friend working at a publishers showed them her first story, The Duck's Tail, and her writing career soon took off.

The six books which have since been published and sold all around the world were stories she told her son, Tom, as a child.

All the books, including The Brave Hare and The Duck's Winter, are illustrated by her husband.

Tom is now an instructor at an outdoor education centre in Eire, teaching climbing, sailing and canoeing.

From their home in Malvern, Mr and Mrs Saunders can look out at the hills and the landscape is one that appears in virtually all the backgrounds of the books' pictures.

She said: "The characters are mainly animals and they live beneath the Malverns and it is about their adventures.

"It takes about two years from the first idea to when it is published."

Looking back, she acknowledges a life of work in publishing would have been very exciting.

"It is intensely creative - I would have loved it, it combined everything."

She also admits to missing teaching, although she still goes around schools in her capacity as children's librarian.

She also gives talks on publishing to older children.

Mrs Saunders plans to spend more time on books and her other great love, painting watercolours, from next month when she retires.

Leaving Stourport Library will be just the latest in a long line of moves for Mrs Saunders who was brought up in Bristol and South Africa and has lived around the country.