A FORMER menswear shop owner centre has published a collection of poems to raise money for his local church.

Gordon Crosby, 86, has lived in Eccleston all his life and has collected a selection of his prose into a book titled ‘Memories in Verse’ with all proceeds going towards the Christ Church building and restoration fund.

The great-grandfather says he is happy to do all he can to help the church that he has attended for 80 years.

The book contains poems about family, religion and animals, with one or two paying a special tribute to Gordon’s hometown.

He said: “When I was a child Chapel Lane and Church Lane were actually lanes not roads and all the new housing developments that were built after the war was just fields where we used to go fishing.”

But he said his favourite poem of the collection was one he penned whilst visiting Kenya entitled ‘Seasonal Thoughts for An African Child’.

He said: “In 1990 we raised almost £15,000 and we were able to do a project in Kenya.

“We installed a well in an out of the way village and re-roofed an orphanage in Mombasa.

“At the orphanage there was a gorgeous little girl and that was the little girl I wrote the poem for.”

Gordon lives with his wife of 59 years Connie, 85. He has three children and six grandchildren.

And they recently celebrated the birth of their first great grandchild, Olivia Rose.

Gordon ran his own menswear shop, Grosvenor House, on Duke Street, which he opened in the early 1960s, before passing it down to his son, John, when he retired.

He said that poetry has always been a part of his life: “I have always been interested in both reading and writing poetry.

“I wouldn’t consider myself to be a poet, but I enjoy it.”

Copies of ‘Memories in Verse’ cost £5 and are available from the Christ Church in Eccleston.

They are also available in Tyrers.