A PENSIONER is basking in the glow of literary fame after writing a poem about her grandfather and a candle.

Seventy-six-year-old Eva Jones, of Layamon Walk, Stourport, could not believe her eyes when a smart hard-backed anthology of millennium poems, containing a 14-line verse she wrote two years ago, dropped onto her doormat. The poem - My Old Precious Candlestick - is about a candle her grandfather took into the cellars of their Kidderminster house when a Second World War air raid warning was sounded.

She still keeps the candle and candle-holder, blackened with coal dust from the cellar, that her grandfather Harry Buckley held.

The poem was published in a collection of poems by the International Library of Poetry entitled "Memories of the Millennium - the best poems and poets of the 20th century."

Mrs Jones said: "I was really surprised. I write poetry sometimes and I belong to the Townswomen's Guild. They suggested I submit my verses for a competition but I had forgotten all about it."

She remembers vividly, however, as the poem records, how at the age of 17 she went into the cellars of her grandfather's cottage at Sion Gardens in Kidderminster in 1941. "I can see him sitting there now. His pipe was shaking so I knew he was afraid."

She was aware of five bombs dropping around that time, one at Gibbons Crescent, Stourport, and the others at Foley Park, Kidderminster.