My words! Jan’s tale is retold

Author Jan Needle reads about nurse Sadie M’Gee in his children’s book — with his daughter and real life nurse Sadie

History repeats itself this weekend when Saddleworth author Jan Needle promotes his book “Wagstaffe the Wind-up Boy” at Oldham’s Waterstones branch.

The novel, set in Oldham, was published over 20 years ago and a huge hit.

Now it is being reprinted by Back to Front, a new publishing company, and Jan, from Uppermill, will be signing copies in the Spindles’ book store between noon and 2pm on Saturday.

And if one of its characters, nurse Sadie M’Gee, sounds familiar to anyone who has visited Accident and Emergency at the Royal Oldham Hospital recently, that’s because she was based on his real life daughter — Sadie M’Gee Nancy Elizabeth Needle, then six, who grew up to be a nurse and is now 29.

“Sadie was determined to be a nurse from being about six years old,” said Jan. “I kept telling her ‘you want to be a doctor’ but she never changed and now she works in A and E and she won’t move, she just loves it.”

Jan, 66, wrote about Wagstaffe — “a vile character”, he says — to persuade his eldest son Hugh to read.

He said: “He’s now 33 and a mathematician, and didn’t read books at all when he was a boy.

“So I wrote it especially for him and said he had to read it, and he’s read it about 20 times. I wrote it for people who don’t want to read books.

“Wagstaffe’s quite a horrible character and some of it is quite rude and challenging.”

Jan, who was also prolific author of naval stories from the 18th century and could write a book a week, found himself in hospital 12 years ago when he was in a bad car crash on the M62. It has taken him almost a decade to get back to writing again.

Now he has three books on the go — one about modern Army life based on conversations with his younger son Dave (24) and his Army friends, which has yet to find a publisher (”too controversial” he says); an adult detective story called “Three Weeks in September”, now in print; and a modern children’s tale very loosely based on “Treasure Island”.