Reading stories to his grandson has opened a whole new chapter in the life of a Lochaber man.
David Anderson thoroughly enjoyed making up tales to read to nine-year-old Jack to try to get him off to sleep.
Now all these stories will reach a wider audience as they have been turned into a book which was launched in Fort William at the weekend.
And all the money raised from the sales of the book – Children’s Bedtime Stories from the Scottish Highlands – will go to charity.
Mr Anderson, 69, who stays in Fort William, said: “It all started through reading bedtime stories to my grandson, Jack.
“He gave me loads of ideas and I started to write them down, so they would come out the same when I told them. Children don’t like things to be changed, so I thought the safest way would be to put the stories down on paper.
“I write the way I speak, but it was great fun jotting them down.”
Mr Anderson is a member of the Rotary Club of Lochaber, and his colleagues encouraged him to put his bedtime stories into print.
He said: “This took quite a bit of courage, but it is very much a Lochaber effort. There are 14 stories altogether and the books are all printed in Fort William.
“Local people – Kerr Brown, Fiona and Armando Bercenas, Connor Campbell and Rocco Berdarelli – did all the illustrations as well as the front cover.
“Connor is at Lochaber High and Rocco is just eight, but it was all their own work and they did really well.
“All the proceeds will go to the Rotary club and will be distributed to different charities.”
Mr Anderson, who is originally from Forfar, was an optometrist and ran an optician’s shop in Fort William’s High Street with his wife, Maureen. But he keeps very busy in his retirement – over and above his writing – as he is a part-time Church of Scotland minister.
The couple have two daughters, Shirley, Jack’s mum, who lives in Inverness, and Gillian, a music teacher at Ardnamurchan High School.
Gillian also has a son, Axel, who is just seven and a half months old, so it looks as though his grandfather will be thinking up new ideas for more bedtime stories in the future.
