Speedy pupils write a book in a week

Professor Ian McMillan working on the book with Daniel Holmes

Prize-winning authors could never keep up a pace like this — university students and Saddleworth schoolchildren are aiming to produce a book in a week.

The project is being organised by the University of Bolton and is the brainchild of photography tutor Ian Beesley, of Greenfield.

Work is being based around Saddleworth Museum, already a fund of information for a book on Saddleworth. But students and Year Six pupils from St Chad’s Primary School, Uppermill, have been busily touring the area to research further words and pictures.

Mr Beesley, who once had the North-West in focus as a Granada cameraman, said: “It is going very well. It is a partnership between the Bolton students who are doing the work as part of their course and the local community.

“We are aiming to finish the project by tomorrow and then it will be sent to a digital printers in Huddersfield who should produce the book by Friday. We aim to launch it in Saddleworth next week.”

Helping with the project is poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan, who is a visiting professor at the university, who said: “I have found the children here are very keen and we are getting lots of information and taking lots of pictures.”