AUTHOR Nigel Knowles, after losing seats on county, district and Bewdley town councils, is now a man with time on his hands.

The former chairman of Worcestershire County Council prefers to say the electorate has given him "time off for good behaviour" and so he has put his new-found freedom from politics to use to produce his latest book - The Mayor of Crewdley Exposed.

Bewdley folk may enjoy trying to match-up characters such as town councillor Mrs Olivia Bland and Archibald McSnadden, editor of The Weekly Weaver, with their possible real-life counterparts.

The book can best be described as broad farce set in the riverside town of Crewdley.

It centres on the eponymous and wildly misnamed Harold Presbyterian, epicure, philanderer and bon viveur, who presides as the waters of the River Crewd rise.

It is not the Bewdley author's first comic novel - that came in 1990 with The Tailor's Dummy - however, he is better known for a string of local history books, most recently on the Civil War in Wyre Forest.

However, what is most surprising about the latest book, is the number of errors in basic spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Thus, we have '"forebodence", instead of "foreboding"; "vamouse" instead of "vamoose"; "greasy poll" for "greasy pole" and "masceurading" for "masquerading".

The Mayor of Crewdley Exposed is priced at £5 and is published by Star and Garter today.