AN EX-KENDAL copper has turned his hand to fiction writing, attempting to capture the Cumbrian character through his new novel.

Eddie Wren, writing under the pseudonym of Steve Shearwater, tells the tale of a young police officer in the 1970's in his northern patch.

Mr Wren, who is from Threlkeld but now lives in the USA, said that although My Cup Runneth Over is a fiction there are elements that he has borrowed from his own time in the force.

"One of my main things I wanted to show was some of the drama, yes, and some of sadness, yes, because you can't escape that," Mr Wren said. "But I also wanted to show the humourous side of things and that police are real people and they're just as fallible as everyone else whether that's in their work of their love life."

Mr Wren, who began his own career in the '70s and worked all over Cumbria, but was first stationed in Kendal, said that what was most important to him was to 'tell a story about Cumbria'.

"I've got a very great affection for the Lake District," he said. "It was very important to me to try help people understand why people are so passionate about the Lake District.

"I've tried to paint a picture of Cumbria and Cumbrians and to thread the police story through it."

To help achieve the accuracy he was aiming for, Mr Wren, a life member of the Lakeland Dialect Society, has included dialect in the novel which his audience has been receptive to.

"I've tried to be very sparing with it because even Cumbrians struggle to read in dialect," he said. "So I've kept it to a minimum."

The 61-year-old, who trained with Hull City Police before moving to Cumbria, said that as fabulous as working in the Lake District was, the area offered some unique policing challenges.

"The challenge is that with 15 million passing through you don't need many of them to be burglars or ones who break into cars to make it very hard indeed to catch them because they're here and then back on the M6 and they're gone," he said.

Mr Wren said that he hoped he would write five novels in total, following Mr Shearwater's career as it progressed.