SHE is famous across the world as an author.

But it was with children in her adopted home town of Huddersfield that Joanne Harris chose to share festive stories from her new book.

She popped into the Tolson Museum yesterday as part of a Christmas special.

Ms Harris was reading in the museum, at Ravensknowle Park, as part of the Tolson’s Christmas event which included performances from Dalton Junior School Choir and a visit from Santa in a vintage car.

The Almondbury author, who rose to fame in 1999 with her hit novel Chocolat, read The Ghosts of Christmas Present, a tale from her short stories collection A Cat, A Hat And A Piece of String.

The story, which was also published in Good Housekeeping magazine, is a bittersweet tale of a lonely man reminiscing during the final hours of Christmas Eve.

The tale – one of two festive short stories in the book – explores how Christmas can be a great time for some people but a miserable experience for others.

Ms Harris 48, says: “All my Christmas stories are very bittersweet. There’s something about Christmas that makes me tell stories about ghosts and marginalised people.

“Christmas is a dual time. It’s when you get together to celebrate but you’re fighting the dark and cold.”

Like anyone with a healthy sense of cynicism Joanne finds the protracted marketing of Christmas tedious, but she admits she’s quite ‘nostalgic’ about Yuletide.

She says: “There’s stuff I can do without but you get the Christmas you deserve. If you build up impossible aspirations you’re going to be disappointed.

“The best Christmases I’ve had weren’t planned, when we’ve been together and there’s been no sense of enforced fun.”

Ms Harris adds: “I’m happy to have Christmas music when December starts but not before that. There should be no Christmas before December.”

And Joanne agrees that Christmas shouldn’t be about material things.

She says: “Christmas is about togetherness. My favourite Christmas presents haven’t cost much money.”

While many Huddersfield folk who became famous have left for the bright lights of a big city or rural isolation, Joanne says she’ll be staying here.

She says: “The great thing about my job is that I can work anywhere. I don’t have to go to London. I have a flat in King’s Cross but I value seclusion and countryside – and people don’t care what you do here.

“I was born in Barnsley and I found the house I live in 12 years ago and I fell in love with it.”