A LOVE affair with a man from Orkney transformed a Leyton woman into an author.

Gill Muir, 56, of Burwell Road, met her husband George, 57, when she camped at his mother's croft on the remote island of Westray. She was on holiday and was just 17 years old.

His mother ended up writing to her and Mrs Muir started writing to her son too.

She said: "We wrote for seven years and then we decided to meet. Our letters were very matter of fact, nothing sensual or sexual."

But then during a half-term break she went on holiday there again and much to her surprise, romance blossomed.

The two married and Mrs Muir moved to Westray.

While living there, her husband's mother became more than just a mother-in-law to her. She told her endless stories about the people who lived on the island, inspiring her to write a book about a man who lived there at the turn of the last century.

Called From Daybreak to the Glimmering, it tells the story of how John Mainland-Dreaver left his home on Westray looking for adventure and worked in Edinburgh as a chemist, before moving again to Crouch End in North London.

It is a fictionalised account of one of the real-life stories told to her by her mother-in-law.

Mrs Muir said that she wanted to record the story before the remaining traditional islanders were all gone.

"The environment has totally changed. People are leaving and incomers are moving there to retire," she said.

Now Mrs Muir has moved with her retired farmer husband to Leyton and says that, although he has never lived anywhere else but the Orkney Islands, he is loving the big smoke so far.

She said: "We were all a bit nervous about what he would think but he just loved it."

Now Mrs Muir is looking for funding to publish her book. She has already raised a quarter of the costs from the High Arts section of the Scottish Arts Council and hopes other organisations will stump up the rest.