A FORMER journalist who resigned from her job four years ago to start writing from home has had her second book published.

Diana Appleyard, 38, who was born in Burnley, has based her novel A Class Apart on her own experiences.

It tells the story of the relationship between Lucy, a middle-class home counties girl, and Rob, a working-class lad from Lancashire.

Diana said she has experienced snobbery from other people because of her marriage to her Scottish husband Ross, 39, who has a working-class background.

She explained that the essence of the book is based on the ideal that we live in a classless society, but at the same time we also make judgements based on snob values.

She said: "The book is very much based on the fact that we all pretend that class doesn't exist when it does, although it is far more subtle than it used to be.

"It's about how we show what class we think we are by the house we live in and the clothes we buy." Diana began her journalism career at the Accrington Observer, where she worked for three years. She moved to the Manchester Metro News, before joining Greater Manchester Radio as a reporter/producer for three years. She then worked at Radio West Midlands in Birmingham, as an education correspondent.

Diana is a former pupil of Sunnybank School, Burnley and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School Blackburn, and graduated from Bristol University with an English degree. She is already working on her third book, about divorce.

The couple have two daughters, Beth, 12, and Charlotte, six. They live in Bicester in Oxfordshire, but Diana still has family in Lancashire. Her mum Pam Moulds lives in Read and her sister lives in Barrowford.

A Class Apart, published in paperback by Black Swan, is available from bookshops, at £6.99.