A WRITER who overcame the difficulties of living with dyslexia to become a published author has penned a story inspired by the time she spent living in Kenya.

Tracy Traynor, from Newton-le-Willows, was not allowed to take French at school because of her learning difficulties.

However, after she went to college at 40 to do accountancy exams, Tracy turned her life around.

She has released three books centred around a character called Idi - and has now written a fascinating story 'Grace in Mombasa' based on her time living in Africa and a woman she met.

Tracy said: "I met a woman called Moira Smith who lived in the Mombasa Coast General Hospital, she joked as she never left they eventually gave her her own rooms.

"She was an administrator there but spent all her time evangelising and helping the people who came into the hospital in any way that she could.

"She arrived on a ship at age 41 - just two years after the end of the Second World War.

"So touched by her life story I decided to write a novel, this is a story inspired by her but not an autobiography."

Tracy has set the first of the story in Newton and features the Manchester Blitz with Grace (Moira) going with her dad to help with the fires.

She gets engaged to an American GI from Burtonwood, and a there are numerous mentions of things that happened during the war in the area.

Tracy added: "She heard a boy screaming one day and when she asked why she was told that you only went into the Coast General to die so he was fighting going there, despite having just fallen out of a coconut tree and breaking his leg. From that moment she stayed to help people."

Tracy is donating 50 per cent of all sales to Barnabus Trust Outreach Mombasa.

Grace in Mombasa will be released on December 1 and will be available on Amazon and copies will be available from the Studio hairdressers on Queen Street, Earlestown.