THE imagination of a South Cumbrian author is helping bring the spirit of Christmas alive in a colourful range of children’s books.

Ulverston post office worker Chris Waddington - who has been writing poetry and rhymes for 15 years - made the move into writing children’s books about three years ago.

This month Mr Waddington, 45, released a trio of children’s books with a festive theme.

“I have had poems used in greetings cards and I wrote a collection of poetry that was on sale on Kindle,” he said.

“I thought about the idea of putting a Christmas poem into a full length story with illustrations and sourcing an illustrator.”

Mr Waddington found his illustrator in the form of Sudipta Dasgupta, who is based in Kolkata, India, and the result is three books entitled The Last Teddy Bear on the Shelf, Where’s Rudolph? and Hanging Out With Father Christmas.

“I write the book first and describe the pictures to him that I want and what type of illustration we want for each page,” he said.

“The writing can take a couple of days, but then to get the illustrations takes about a month.”

The books have previously been available on the Kindle, but Mr Waddington knew he had to get them printed in order to break into the children’s market.

“They did sell, but they sell better for children if they are physical book they can use for bedtime stories,” said Mr Waddington, who lives in Barrow.

The three stories are on Mr Waddington’s website www.festivebooks.com as well as via his Facebook page www.facebook.com/festivebooks and in local shops.

Mr Waddington said although the books were mainly comical he had also written them to “tug at people’s heart strings”.

“People have been quite impressed with them so far, and the ideas, which has been encouraging,” he said.

“I have had a lot of support from people and I am very grateful.”