TOM Richards has typed 600 pages of his action-packed life story, but at 92 still has a long way to go to bring it up to date.

"So far I have reached 1980, but a lot has happened in the 23 years since then, so I have got a lot of writing to do yet," he said.

The retired architect, who lives in Barnard Castle, County Durham, can recall many successes but a number of disasters, and he has detailed them in his volume, Naked Truth.

He has nine children by his two marriages, both ending in divorce. But for the past 30 years he has been happy with partner Jennifer. His disasters include being involved with three failed businesses and being sacked three times.

He was a designer for a film company, working on movies such as Elephant Boy and Fire Over England, but was sacked for refusing to do unpaid overtime.

He was also dismissed from another job during the Second World War for refusing to design blast-proof air raid shelters, rather than bomb-proof ones.

One success came in 1930 when, aged 19, he won a competition to design a street facade in Carlisle.

The youngest ever to win such a competition, he recently applied to have the feat included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Born in India, where his father was a mine superintendent, he was sent to a boarding school in England and was 13 years old when told of his father's suicide.

Mr Richards, who has 18 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, is trying to find a publisher to bring out the book.

"I shouldn't think there are many people typing their autobiography at the age of 92, but I still feel perfectly able," he said.