A FORMER doctor from Clitheroe has taken his life experiences in the medical profession and the Second World War to write his first novel.

David McMichael, 80, who has lived in the town since 1963, has written 'Shadow's in a Photograph', a tale about a young medical officer, Peter Waring, serving at an RAF Bomber station in 1941.

Published by Austin Macauley, the character has to come to terms with the turmoil all around him and dealing with the pressures of being an army medic.

Dr McMichael, who practised medicine across the UK, grew up in London during the Second World War and was 10-years-old when the fighting stopped.

As a youngster, the former doctor was not evacuated during the blitz and spend many nights in the family Morrison Shelter when the bombs started to drop.

The former St Andrew's University student between 1954 and 1960 said he spent a lot of time around ex service men in his medical career.

He said: "When I left university and was practicing medicine, all the doctors were ex-service men who had been called up to the frontline.

"They would have seen so many awful and frightening things, but I learnt a lot from them during my time as a doctor.

"Of a generation which overlaps that of those who experienced the Second World War as adults, memories of it and interest in it have been always with me.

"I wanted to write the book and bring the war and medicine together for people to understand how the war was perceived through the eyes of medics, which not always looked at.

"I remember being a child during the war and it became a routine to hide in the Morrison shelter.

"It was a big old thing, it took up a lot of the room and took the place of the dining room table.

"Things are very different nowadays, I grew up in a time when you would be walking to school and if the sirens went off, you were told to go to the nearest house and ask to hide."

The book is available from visiting www.austinmacauley.com.