GLOBE columnist Peter Grant tracks down Wirral-based author and rail enthusiast Stephen Done to talk about his latest book, Cold Steel Rail.

STEPHEN Done can remember exactly when he became a writer.

He said: "It was August 3, fifty years ago and it was my eighth birthday.

"Whilst dressed in my new Batman cape, (with best friend Sean – he had a bright yellow Robin cloak), dark, thunder clouds gathered behind our house on the outskirts of Scarborough as I declared 'I wanted to become the driver of a steam engine.' Only to be told that the last steam engines were departing the next day.

"Perhaps that is why I took up writing about steam trains instead."

That early dream did happen and he did get to drive a steam engine.

He recalled: "Almost 40 years later I actually managed it, spending a week driving and firing a huge Polish locomotives on real service trains filled with - strangely relaxed and unconcerned Polish commuters.

"I never knew the Great Central Railway when operational but spent some teenage years in Brackley and watched the great viaduct being demolished.

"So, I have tried to breathe life back into the large sections of the line that are now silent and overgrown by taking readers back to time when steam still ruled the rails and am a member of the Friends of the Great Central Railway."

His latest book again features the ever popular Inspector Charles Vignoles, his trusty deputy Sergeant Trinder and their team in the British Railways Detective department working during the immediate post war austerity Britain.

Stephen tells the Globe his latest novel sees a Father Christmas go off the rails ...

He said: "Romantic notions of a cosy white Christmas in December 1954 for a tight-knit community along a secluded railway branch line are brutally dashed by the actions of a satanic Santa whose deathly season's greetings soon send a tragic shockwave into the wider world."

Yet again Stephen is meticulous in his railway research.

"The action speeds along the former Great Central Railway line from rural Leicestershire into the urban bustle of London, Liverpool and Manchester.’’

Stephen, who lives in New Brighton, is a museum curator by profession and official historian and curator of Liverpool Football Club museum at Anfield since 1998.

He is hoping that we will one day see the Inspector and his team on the small screen and is already looking forward to publishing book number ten, called Murder on Broadway, as are rail enthusiasts and loyal fans from all over the country.

When not planning up a new plot for his books he likes bird watching, gardening and walking, railway modelling (when time and space allow) and a good real ale.

Cheers Stephen ... and let's drink to Inspector Vignoles, too, who will never run out of steam.

Copies of Cold Steel Rail (published by Vignoles Press, £8.99) and the eight other titles are now available at: Literally a Bookshop, 12 Atherton Street, New Brighton.

Stephen will also be talking about Inspector Vignoles and reading from New Brighton Rock and Cold Steel Rail and signing copies of the two books at The WAVE, St James Church, New Brighton on Tuesday September 11 between 12.30 and 3pm.

Admission is free.

He is happy to give readings to schools, book clubs and other interested groups about the Inspector Vignoles Mysteries