MOST pensioners see their retirement as a chance to have a well-earned rest — an opportunity to live life at a slower pace.

But not Great Harwood octogenarian Anne Clegg.

After hanging up her ballet shoes — having dedicated 44 years of her life to teaching the youngsters of East Lancashire to dance — she took up her pen and the hard work really began.

At the age of 62 Anne began studying for a degree in philosophy at the University of Lancaster.

And after graduating in 1993, rather than taking it easy she decided to continue in her quest for knowledge and enrolled on the university’s PhD course in philosophy.

Upon being awarded her doctorate in 2001 Anne still wasn't ready to put her feet up — or her pen down — and over the next five years she wrote two novels, My Pen and I and Just Tim, which have just been released.

“I still haven't got over it,” admitted Anne, 82, who lives in Lyndon Avenue, Great Harwood, with husband Tony.

“It's still a shock to me. Sometimes I sit back and think to myself ‘How can I have been so successful?’ When I started out I just wanted to get a degree and I was thinking that I might not even pass.

"But if I've had any success in my life it's been because of Tony. He's very supportive."

Anne, who has four grown-up children, will be best-known to many across East Lancashire as the principal of the Anne Cummings School of Dancing, which she ran from 1945 to 1989 teaching ballet, tap, modern, and later disco dancing.

Dancing was Anne's first passion, and she performed on stage from the age of 12, performing dancing alongside actress Beryl Reid.

Anne admitted that she and Tony are still fond of the odd trip to the light fantastic.

"We dance around the house," she said. "We tap dance on our wooden floor and put music on and run around the lounge doing arm and leg movements."

By enrolling at university in 1990 Anne was fulfilling a lifelong dream.

"It had been my original plan to go to university," she said.

"When I left school at 14 I still studied and took a matriculation exam to gain entry into university, but there were no scholarships, no grants. I simply couldn't afford to go."

Anne relished her time at university.

"My student days were very happy. I enjoyed every minute of it," she said.

"The younger students accepted me. They were lovely. But my goodness, they had a funny idea of old age. I was only in my 60s, which I don't regard as being really decrepit, but one day one youngster asked me what it was like when they had silent films. I said: 'Look love, I'm not that old!'.

After finishing her thesis in 2001, Anne had a short break from study — but soon got the bug again and began work on her first novel, My Pen and I, which tells the story of a struggling writer whose pen has a mind of its own.

"I didn't plan the book from start to finish," said Anne. "I just started it one day and ideas came through to me so I just wrote them down. I never knew what was going to happen next. My husband would say 'Come on, I've read that chapter, what happens next?' And I'd tell him: 'I don't know'."

But, unhappy with her first attempt at the novel, Anne threw the manuscript into a drawer and forgot about it.

It was only after having an operation to ease pain in her back, and spending time laid-up recuperating, that Anne took up her pen again to write second novel, Just Tim.

It tells the story of a young boy who copes with foster caring, bullying and the imprisonment of his mother.

Again, Anne claims the story "came to her".

"This little boy suddenly appeared in my mind and I seemed to know everything about him all at once," she said.

After completing Just Tim, Anne returned to her debut novel My Pen and I and, after several re-drafts, she was finally happy with the story.

Anne's studies in philosophy have proved useful for her writing. Both books contain philosophical ideas, particularly My Pen and I, in which the main character's pen, Parker, speaks to her. This deals with the theory of panpsychism, which is the idea that everything in our world, including the world itself, has a certain degree of consciousness.

Anne's original plan was to pay £2,000 to have both books published as Christmas gifts for her four children in 2008.

But the books were more popular than she had banked on.

"Biddles, the publishers, came back and said the books were very good and suggested we approach the big stationers to supply them," said Anne.

"We were getting lots of positive feedback and the pile of 100 copies we'd had printed was going down quickly, so we ended up having more printed."

Boosted by her success Anne plans to write more stories, but she knows she must wait until the time is right.

"The next book is up there," she said, pointing to her head.

"But it has to come to me, I can't go to it. I have to wait until it speaks to me.

"I may be 82 but I regard being a novelist as my sixth career. I started off on the stage, then I did office work, after that I taught English and shorthand in local schools, then I set up my ballet school, then I did my degree, followed by my PhD, and finally I am doing what I planned when I was a little girl, which is being an author.

l My Pen and I and Just Tim are on sale now, priced £17 each, from Mantonian Books.