LORRAINE Coverley’s writing deserves to be better known, and now, with the publication of her book of short columns, many more people have been given the opportunity to discover her.

Something and Nothing is a collection of humorous observations about life and living, written and read over 15 years on behalf of the Rayleigh and Rochford Talking Newspaper for the Blind.

You do not need to be sightless, however, to enjoy her writing, which is constantly amusing, quirky, and, where appropriate, trenchant.

Rising out of Lorraine’s day-to-day experiences and observations, the subjects range from the vexing question whether Beefeaters really do live on beef, to how to entertain a dog who has been foisted on you, and wise advice on bell-ringing for vertigo sufferers. The author does not need to work too hard to find comic material in everyday life, because the world at large seems determined to provide such material, gratis.

Thus, when she conducts a group of children on a creepy ghost tour, an enormous spider upstages any evil spirits, lumbering on to the scene and scattering the screaming children. She gets whiplash, not like other people from a car-crunch, but carrying a pile of library books.

As far as Lorraine is concerned, when things go wrong they go right.

“Listeners and readers would soon lose the will to live if I just rattled on about all the things that were going smoothly in my life,” Lorraine says.

There are really three Lorraine Coverleys. One of them is a married legal secretary with two daughters and a geriatric washing machine who lives an unremarkable life in Benfleet.

The second is Lorraine the avid writer, who has been scribbling non-stop since she won a poetry contest at the age of four.

She has published a number of plays, and a novel, school of Terry Pratchett, called Worlds Apart.

The third is Lorraine the literary character, who stumbles through the pages of Something and Nothing.

This version a wellintentioned Essex mum and wife who is constantly subject to misadventures, not of her own making, but who adds to her reservoir of wry wisdom with every mishap that occurs. “I do like to laugh – at myself,”

she says.

ý Lorraine Coverley will be signing copies of Something and Nothing at the Benfleet Christmas Fayre on December 5. She will be at St Mary’s Church hall throughout the morning. Something and Nothing is available online via Amazon @ £7.99 ISBN 9781515063551