AUTHOR Philip Steele presented a cheque for £250 to Friends of Green Lane Hospital on Saturday, the proceeds of his definitive history of Roundway Hospital, published last year and entitled Down Pans Lane.

Mr Steele's exhaustive and readable history of Wiltshire's county asylum has now sold more than 500 copies.

Having covered its publishing costs, Mr Steele is now able to fulfil his pledge to the volunteer support group for its successor, Green Lane Hospital in Devizes.

Mr Steele said: "Hopefully this is the first of many further amounts of money that I will be able to pass on to the Friends.

"The book has done particularly well in Devizes but has also sold well in other Wiltshire towns, on top of a lot of postal sales."

He presented the cheque to the Friends of Green Lane Hospital at Devizes Books in Sidmouth Street on Saturday.

Mr Steele, a former RAF navigator and retired local government officer who lives in Bradford on Avon, has no plans to write other books but, he says, is always open to offers.

He is involved in some personal family history and regularly gives talks on the history of Roundway Hospital, the former mental hospital which closed in 1995.

If any group would like to book him to speak, he can be contacted on (01225) 864151.