A BUDDING writer has published his first novel just five years after he won an Examiner short story competition.

Author Mike Reilly was inspired to pen his first book after he took home the top prize in The Examiner’s 2006 Huddersfield Literature Festival.

His winning entry, entitled Mates, was a fictional tale based on his childhood in a host of Huddersfield children’s homes.

Mike lived in various homes around the Huddersfield area including at Fartown Grange on Spaines Road – now a medical centre – and Ash Villa at Wood Lane, Newsome, which is now flats.

His book Miracle Boy is set in Huddersfield and follows the life of a boy being brought up in care in the town during the 1960s.

The father-of-four, who used to live in Bradley and is now in Derbyshire, said winning the competition had given him the confidence to pursue his dream of being a novelist.

He said: “I noticed in passing that there was a competition running in The Examiner. I had a piece that I’d written and I thought why not enter.

“I was quite gobsmacked three months later when I found out I’d won first prize.

“It gave me the spur to do this as I thought my writing must be going somewhere now.”

Mike said the novel drew from his childhood experiences but wasn’t autobiographical.

He said: “The short story happened to be about boys in a children’s home and how they became friends out of conflict.

“I was interviewed by someone at The Examiner who posed the question ‘is this from your own experiences?’ and I said I’d like to write a book but I didn’t want it to be about my experiences.

“I didn’t want to write a misery memoir. I wanted to write a really good book that people would enjoy and learn something about that world.

“I wanted to write a good novel with a kind of Dickensian plot.” And in a bizarre twist Mike said another article in The Examiner had also played a part in his move towards a career as an author.

He explained: “At the same time as I entered that competition there was a nostalgia section that had a photograph in it of a Christmas party in a children’s home.

“I was looking at this picture from the 1950s and I realised it was me.

“It was the first time I’d ever seen a photograph of myself as a child.

“If you’ve lived that life in children’s homes you don’t have any memorabilia so when I saw that picture it sent a shiver down my spine and it began to make me think about those times.”

Mike, who went to Stile Common Junior School and King James’s Grammar, said reaction to the book had been great and was he was now working on his second novel.

He added: “The feedback I’ve had so far from readers is fantastic,’’ he said. “People think it’s a great read.

“A typical comment is ‘I read it in two days because I couldn’t put it down’. That’s what I wanted it to be.”