Transsexual Dawn Smith has just written her autobiography. She talks to Women's Editor Christen Pears about her remarkable life.

THE sign on the desk reads Dawn Smith and behind it, sits a tall woman in her sixties. She's wearing a brown, hooded coat over her dress to protect her against the cold of the industrial unit where she works.

"I don't know how much you know about me," she says, sweeping her hair off her face, "but I'm a transsexual."

Dawn's life is a remarkable one. She's been a husband, father, engineer and topless waitress. She's encountered prejudice and battled mental illness, and now, at the age of 68, she is publishing her story: From Dawn to Dusk, the Autobiography of a Transsexual Engineer.

There are two photographs on the cover. One I recognise instantly; it's Dawn as she is now. The other is a young man, wearing a jacket and tie and smiling into the camera. Looking more closely, I notice some similarities: the wide eyes, the set of the mouth. This, too, is Dawn.

Dawn was born in 1936 and christened Michael David. He was born in High Wycombe but grew up in Grantham, a lonely and troubled child who knew he was different from the age of 11, although it would be many years before he could put a name to it.

It was his first day at grammar school. Standing outside the gates, looking at the boys inside as they talked and put their bicycles away, he felt panic well up inside him. He fled, running as fast as he could through the town until he came to a stop outside the nearby girls' school.

"To this day I do not know what motivated me to go there. As far as my conscious thoughts were concerned I had none, I was simply seized by terror and panic. For whatever reason my only thought was that this was the school that I should be going to rather than the school that I had just run away from," says Dawn.

Michael spent hours on his own, retreating into his own private fantasy world, where he became a girl. But fantasy began to spill over into real life and he was still at school when he bought his first items of female clothing - two pairs of blue girls' knickers. He began to experiment, dressing up in women's clothes and wearing make-up, but he still felt pressure to conform.

In 1957, he was called up for National Service in 1957 and spent five years with the RAF working in radar technology. It was during this time he met his first wife, Alys, a control tower operator.

If he had been hoping marriage would put an end to his fantasies, he was disappointed. The marriage was unconsummated and the couple drifted apart. By the time he was posted to East Africa, Alys had moved back to England and Michael was able to explore his gender issues, dressing in women's clothing on a regular basis.

But a broken back, combined with post-traumatic stress disorder, resulted in him being repatriated. On his return to England, he spent 13 months in a residential mental hospital in Sussex and it was here he first heard the term "transsexual". He realised it applied to him but it didn't stop him striking a relationship with a fellow patient, Christine, who would become his second wife and the mother of his son, David.

Christine was almost unfathomably understanding, encouraging Michael to dress as a woman. She also set him on the route to gender reassignment surgery after reading an article in a woman's magazine.

"It's difficult for other people to understand but Christine was an amazing support right from day one. I don't know what I would have done without her," says Dawn, and although the couple later divorced, they remain in contact.

Following his discharge from the RAF, Michael worked for various companies as a communications engineer and embarked on the pioneering Gender Identity Programme at Charing Cross Hospital in London. Michael David was becoming Michelle Dawn but the transition wasn't a smooth one.

It was while working at a security company in the late 70s that Dawn first started openly dressing as a woman. Initially, her boss had been supportive but when the man he had known as Mike turned up for work wearing make-up and a short skirt, he realised it wouldn't work. Dawn was ostracised, and she eventually resigned.

She re-trained as a hotel receptionist and rose of the ranks of Trusthouse Forte but was sacked when it was discovered her sex was shown as 'boy' on her birth certificate.

Out of sheer desperation, she took a job as a topless waitress at a club in London. It was a surreal episode in her life. She had started taking hormonal drugs and had developed breasts but still had male genitalia. It was a difficult time. One of the things that kept her going was the camaraderie with the other girls. The other was her passion for the railway.

Through this, she met her future partner, John Howard-Turner, a consultant with the National Railway Museum in York. It was John who saw her through another bout of mental illness and the gender reassignment surgery that finally saw her become a woman. She doesn't devote a lot of space to the operation in her book. It appears merely as the final step in a long process.

As a female engineer dismantling signalling boxes across the country, she attracted a lot of press. She became a consultant in the early days of cable television in the UK and she and John moved from their home in Surrey to the North-East to set up an integrated digital publishing company.

Sadly, her son died of a brain tumour in 1988, aged 19. This was followed by John's death two years later. The deaths sent Dawn into a state of shock and her suicidal tendencies re-emerged.

"I've been in intensive care more times than I remember," she says matter-of-factly. "I've been pulled from under a train and hauled out of the marina but I'm still here."

In recent years, it's been the thought of publishing her autobiography that has kept her going. The book emerged in embryonic form during sessions with a clinical psychologist in the early 90s, when she was encouraged to write about her experiences. It came naturally as she had always charted her feelings in diaries and letters. At first, she had intended to write for the caring profession but she now realises there is a wider audience.

"When people first found out I was a transsexual, I had a sledgehammer through my window and nine months of hate mail. With this book, I want to help other transsexuals and professionals, but also these people who don't understand."

Dawn invested more than £40,000 in a new businesss, Glebe Printing Services, based in Horden. At first, her only thought was to publish From Dawn to Dusk, but with support from business advisors, Walker Hall, she has developed an ambitious business plan. She has a burgeoning list of forthcoming titles, including some of her own works on the railways. She hopes to have 11 staff within a year, all with a disability or from a disadvantaged background, but at the moment it is just her and designer Matthew Hooker, who seems to have become a surrogate son figure.

As Dawn approaches 70, she knows she may not have many years left and is determined to leave a legacy. Matthew will run the business after her death, but her autobiography will stand as the most powerful memorial.

"I have never said, or thought, that I was a woman trapped in a man's body - to my eyes, the easy way out," she says. "I just had to face situations as they occurred and try to deal with them in the best way that I could."

* From Dawn to Dusk costs £25 and is available from Glebe Publications on 0191-5184009.