Vulcan: The Blacksmith Poet by TW Greenhow, £6.50

YOU only need to read the introduction in this delightful little book to realise what a multi-talented individual Thomas William Greenhow was.

Born at Watermillock in 1888, he trained as a blacksmith in Crosby Garrett, later taking over his boss's smithy. During the Great War, he made a hundredweight of horse shoes a week for the Government. He also ground locally farmed oats in the smithy. In the 1930s, before the National Grid, he ran a generator which lit homes in the local community.

Away from work, Thomas was a gifted musician, playing the church organ from the age of 12. He also played cornet and euphonium in Kirkby Stephen silver band.

However, this book skips lightly over those achievements to concentrate on Thomas's other creative talent - poetry.

His poems are traditional in form, often archaic in style - but they feel right for their time and place.

Subjects range wide, from a lament about the flooding of Mardale village to create Haweswater to a condemnation of Adolph Hitler. Thomas died in 1971.

Vulcan: The Blacksmith Poet was compiled by his granddaughter Daphne Park. To order, call 07973-986174.

ALLAN TUNNINGLEY