A GRANDFATHER-of-five has been inspired to write a series of 18 children's books in two years. 

Guy Turner, from Leigh, who had never published a book before, released his first title Tummyfull Strikes Back in January 2016.

The 72-year-old has since written more stories based on the adventures of the main character, overweight duck Tummyfull and his friends, with two more books set to be released on Thursday, November 9.

Self-published author Guy, who plans to release all of his books, said: "I was inspired to write Tummyfull after two separate occasions which took place 23 years apart.

"I was feeding the ducks with my grandson around 25 years ago when he was two-years-old and a large one swam off.

"My grandson said to me at the time 'his tummy must be full'.

"I did not think anything of it, but then two years ago I was on a plane home from a holiday and a stewardess asked a woman if she wanted anything to eat.

"She said 'no thanks, my tummy's full.'

"I picked up a pen and by the time I got off the plane, I had written a poem to go in the first book.

"Sales have done well with my first book so I think a lot of people liked it and I hope my next ones will be well-received too."

In each of the Tummyfull books, Guy includes a poem at the end which provide 'life lessons' that he hopes young readers will take heed from.

After inking his first books, he has words of advice for budding authors. 

Guy added: "I started off by writing a blog about my daily routine which can be boring to start with but when you do it after some time you can make it more interesting.

"You start to make it more funny and informative.

"If you then get an idea about a story like I did, you may find it is not a problem to start writing about it.

"I think that everyone has a good story to tell."

The Tummyfull books are illustrated by Maurice Grumbleweed, a member of former comedy band The Grumbleweeds who had a show on BBC Radio 2 in the 1970s and 1980s.

The next titles to be released by Guy are Tummyfull Takes A Ride and Tummyfull at Walter's.

They will be on sale on November 9 at http://tummufulltheduck.co.uk with existing book Tummyfull Strikes Back which is available to purchase now.