A POLICE detective and mother has written her first book - documenting her life’s ups and downs.

Irene Laycock, from Lostock, Bolton, has had more than her fair share of struggles.

In 2013 her son, Dusty, was still-born and, in 2018, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Now the mum-of-two has self-published her book’ ‘Look for the (effin) Rainbows’ on Amazon and has been nominated for two local awards.

Despite facing challenges Irene, 44, kept a positive outlook on life and every day she would write a list of things to be grateful for.

Being a mum to her boys, seven-year-old Ted and Albie, five, gave her plenty of funny anecdotes and she soon realised she had enough material for a book.

Irene said: “I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason, but when I lost Dusty back in 2013 I couldn’t think what the reason would be.

“I realised I needed to sort my life out and focus on the good things, so I wrote a list of things I was grateful for each day. I also shared stories about my two sons and what they get up to on Facebook and people loved reading them.

“When I was diagnosed with the brain tumour I had even more of a reason to write stuff down.

“It was operated on in March 2019, and afterwards I was told to rest and recover. But after three weeks of watching day-time TV I realised I had to do something, so I started writing the book.”

Irene asked friends to read sections of the book and the feedback encouraged her. Thanks to her open and honest memoir she has been shortlisted in the HER Abilities category at the Inspire Women Awards and the Lifetime Achievement category at the Bolton Health and Wellbeing Awards.

Irene said: “I hope this book can help others when they are going through difficult times. My advice would be, write it down and accept you have to go through certain feelings. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Even though these traumatic events happen we can get back on track and keep laughing. It is hard to be positive all the time, and it’s important to experience the bad times to enjoy the good times.

“Having Dusty was the worst thing that could happen to me but it made me a lot stronger, it’s made me appreciate my two little boys.”