SUGGESTIONS by her late son have sown the seeds for future works by a Rogate author who has just published her debut novel.

Ginny Walker was reading conversations between Maggie and Frank, the main characters in her first book Hatch Match Dispatch, to Ben while he was in hospital with acute myeloid leukaemia. Ben giggled at the dialogue, came up with some ideas and ultimately inspired the premise for three more Hatch Match Dispatch books, of which Ginny is now working on the first.

Ben had been ill for a while but it was not until June last year that it became obvious something was seriously wrong. Ginny and Ben and her husband James were on holiday in Cornwall with Ben’s older sister Ella and younger sister Rose when Ginny noticed Ben’s gums were growing over his teeth.

He had not complained of pain but became tired and frustrated whenever they went out for a walk. Consultations with dentists and doctors led Ben to hospital, by which time he had turned almost yellow in colour. A bone marrow test confirmed he had leukaemia.

Three rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant from a stranger allowed Ben to return home two days before Christmas last year, but he suffered a relapse and died aged 12 in August after a 14-month battle with the disease.

Ginny is now an advocate for blood cancer charity DKMS and is urging people to donate stem cells so other leukaemia sufferers can have a chance of survival.

She is also writing a book about her family’s experience of childhood cancer – which she hopes will help other families on a similar path – and plans to self-publish this late next year.

Hatch Match Dispatch is a warm-hearted comedy which grew out of a screenplay Ginny wrote a decade ago on another Cornish holiday with her husband and their three children.

Frank is based on Ginny’s late father, who decided to become a Rod Stewart lookalike. His wife Maggie loves Mick Jagger, and their daughter Bernice is about to marry Howard. But the wedding car arranged by Frank is a hearse, a prominent villager has just died and her funeral is at the same church on the same day, so confusion and hilarity are guaranteed.

The cover of Hatch Match Dispatch is illustrated by Ginny’s sister Kirstie Rowson. It is published by Authentic Books and is available on Amazon in print and for Kindle.