I'm waiting. The printer will send the first copy and hopefully that will be tomorrow. Then I will hold it in my hand for the first time. I could tell you I'm holding my breath but that would hardly be practical.

I'm coping with some anxiety. It's not going to be perfect, as if there ever was any such thing. But it will be my story, my voice.

Eventually, after several years of burbling on about Surplus to Requirements to anyone who would listen, anyone will be able to read it. Of course my anxiety is associated with what they might make of it. It's my story, my voice.

For several years now I've been concerned about some of the directions our society is going in. In my work as a minister I was concerned that the church seemed to have abandoned its core mission and become consumed with bureaucracy and back biting. More widely, society has ramped up hate and intolerance, particularly for vulnerable people. Once I became surplus to requirements myself, in the middle of a pandemic with no sign of my pension on the horizon, I was, like so many, made more aware of the ways in which vulnerable people were being socially excluded by these developments. With my limited resources, all I could do was write. It's my story, my voice.

But where to start? There was so much that I could write about. First my End to End in 2019; a journey of over 1,000 miles that helped to calm me down and make it possible to imagine another world without being derailed by my own experience every paragraph. A writer has to keep breathing, keep travelling. It's my story, my voice.

Tomorrow, I will hold it in my hand. The printed version available soon but meanwhile you can pre order the e book from Amazon here

Thanks to all of you who held my hand on the way. It's my story, my voice.

Janet Lees, in Longdendale, 12th January 2025