A Mill Hill councillor has just published his debut novel after 25 years of work.

Cllr John Hart of Mount View has written a book called Mammoth Boy which is aimed at young adults who have an interest in archeology.

It is set in the Stone Age and tells the story of an orphan who becomes fascinated by mammoths and cave paintings.

The book, which he self-published through Matador, is now available to buy.

Cllr Hart said: "I bashed out the book over 25 years. I just worked on it every now and again when I was depressed.

"Once I had the characters it just wrote itself."

Cllr Hart was brought up in Pakistan and then in British India.

He then joined the army and acted as a British interpreter-liaison officer in Cyprus during the Suez Affair.

Since then he has had editorial jobs, a stint as a civil servant, and a post as a Spanish and French lecturer.

Cllr Hart said: “The story came to me one Boxing Day driving back from spending Christmas with my late parents and siblings.

“I was depressed and jobless so I escaped into the story.

“My imagination had been fired years before by a course in Spain run by Spanish paleontologists.

“The sheer excitement of contact with those manifestations of the human mind, near-perfect representations of the wildlife teeming around in the world of our ancestors, has remained with me ever since.”

Cllr Hart is now working on his second novel which he describes as "more saucy."