A WELL-KNOWN Teesside businessman has written and published a book during lockdown.

Iain Race, who owns Race Furniture in Middlesbrough, has been writing since he was a young boy but never did anything about it.

After his first grandson came a long, however, he gained the inspiration to write again and this time publish it.

Iain Race, from Middlesbrough, said: “My grandson was definitely my inspiration to write this book, I’ve always written stuff but it usually ends up in the bin and people are telling me it’s good stuff.

“It was meant to be fun and educational as well that was my aim and so I decided to write it.

“I also managed to get an illustrator on board who is from Darlington and I was giving her ideas and asking her if she could do that, and she would say it was a challenge but was happy to do it in the end.

“I wanted the images and illustrations to reflect the poem, and so there’s a poem for each letter of the alphabet and there’s also these interesting facts that are a bit unusual to go with them.

“So the kids are learning about how to spell and the alphabet and unusual animals that you wouldn’t normally think about or see.

“I think I will definitely try and write some more books, there are definitely some others in the pipeline."

“In a way doing this was a bit of a light-hearted thing amongst all the doom and gloom.