SHE MAY be one of the country’s oldest new authors but 82-year-old Betty Woodcock from Kirkheaton has not been afraid to embrace the latest digital technology to bring her work to the attention of readers.

Frustrated by rejections from established publishers and not wanting to incur the costs of vanity publishing, Betty decided to be a thoroughly modern writer and turn her latest work into an e-book.

Using tips gleaned from the internet and help from nephew Lee Chambers, who is a big-selling mystery and fantasy author in Canada, she launched her ghost story, The Pram, on the Kindle website earlier this year.

To her surprise the book began to attract attention – and reviews.

During promotional days, when readers can download selected e-books free-of-charge, Betty ‘sold’ more than 3,700 copies.

Since the end of July she has had more several hundred downloads at £1.68 each – and counting.

Readers have described her novel as “one of those books you struggle to put down”, “entertaining with all sorts of twists” and “a really engrossing story”.

There have also been, it has to be said, some rather less enthusiastic reviews but Betty is taking these in her stride. It is difficult to please everyone.

It’s also difficult to know which is most impressive – Betty’s prolific, belated, output as a writer (she has penned five novels in the last six years) or her ability to master the technical skills needed to be an e-author at an age when many of her peers don’t even own a computer.

Although she was always a keen reader and writer, Betty didn’t start her first novel until nearing retirement age. Written in longhand, the manuscript is still in a drawer.

It was the acquisition of a computer 10 years ago that really encouraged her to continue.

“When I was at school I was always good at writing,” she says, “I was always top of the class for essays, but I wanted to be a book illustrator.

Then I realised that I could probably write books and became a ‘scribbler’.”

In fact, Betty, a former Mirfield Grammar School student, ended up working in the wages office of a local company before marrying her husband Colin.

They set up their own small engineering business, CW Engineering in Honley, and ran it together.

With three sons to care for and a family business, Betty’s writing ambitions were on a back burner.

After being widowed she sold the business and went to work in the administration office of New Hall Prison in Wakefield.

She also joined a creative writing class at the Huddersfield Methodist Mission and has continued to meet the members of the group on a regular basis.

“We read each other’s work. It’s useful to get the feedback,” she says.

Betty enjoys writing novels with twists and turns, suspense and ghosts.

“I have actually seen ghosts,” she says.

“A highwayman on a horse on a bright sunny day. And on another occasion three men dressed in old fashioned clothes who just disappeared as I looked at them.”

It was these experiences that stirred her interest in ghost stories and the occult.

The Pram tells the tale of a woman who buys a second-hand Silver Cross pram (like one that Betty used to own) for her daughter’s new baby.

But the pram appears to be haunted by the spirit of a baby aborted by the grandmother when she was young and unmarried.

In a sinister turn, the ghost takes possession of the new baby but only the grandmother can ‘hear’ the spirit talk.

Another occult novel, Shifting Shadows, will be Betty’s second foray onto the Kindle website and she has started a further ghost story.

She has yet to decide what to do with her other completed novels, one of which is about a girl who goes to prison and draws from the author’s experiences of working in New Hall.

Betty’s decision to go digital came about by chance.

“I bought myself a Kindle and I downloaded a book, not realising that it was my nephew, Lee Chambers, who had written it,” she said.

Lee’s first novel, The Pineville Heist, is a best seller in the USA, and he is a professor on the film programme at a college in Ontario, Canada, where his Huddersfield-born parents emigrated.

“I got in touch with him,” explained Betty, “and he advised me to put my books on Kindle. I did it all myself with help from him and tips off websites.

“Vanity publishers charge £300 or £400 a book and then you have to sell them. It’s a big outlay but there’s no cost for selling them on the Kindle. Also, if you’re sending manuscripts to publishers you waste a lot in postage.”

Her advice to other would-be authors is to explore the e-book route. But she suggests that if writers don’t feel comfortable editing their own material they should pay for professional editing.

“It should sound professionally-written,” she says. “It’s off-putting to read mistakes and somebody somewhere will pick you up on it. I was very careful but someone has given me a bad review and picked up all the faults they could find.”