Peter Kerr's new book goes inside the mind of Border collie

Peter Kerr has written more than a dozen books covering everything from growing oranges in Majorca to a humour-laced mystery series following Bob Burns.

Now, for his latest tale, the prolific Haddington author has put himself in the head of his Border collie Jen.

He said: “We had Jen way back in the 1970s and early 1980s and she was 14 when she died.

“We have had a lot of dogs and, like everybody, they all have their own characters and you remember them.

“There was something special about Jen.

“If they have got collie blood in them then they have got some quirky features.

“Things about Jen always come up in conversation with the family.

“I don’t know what brought the book on. I think I was probably looking after my son’s Labrador and they have a way of sitting looking at you. It is fascinating to think what they might be thinking.

“That got me thinking about going back to Jen and she seemed to be very observant of humans.

“She was not aloof but you could tell with Jen that she thought humans were a bit daft in comparison.”

Author Peter Kerr has put himself in the mind of Border Collie Jen for his latest book

Jen – A Border Collie’s Tale, which is available from Kesley’s Bookshop in Haddington, is written from the perspective of the black and white dog.

The story describes the fun-loving nature of the Border collie, who was bought from a shepherd near Gifford, and her belief that work “is for creatures of a lesser intellect than her own”.

Peter told the Courier that when he started writing his latest book, published by Oasis-WERP, he was not convinced it would turn into a fully fledged story.

He said: “I never thought it would finish up as a book, it was just an exercise for me.

“You start off doing something just for fun and after a while it turns into a chapter.

“It becomes two chapters and, a year later, we had a book.”

Peter, who lives on Haddington’s Chalybeate, previously wrote about his time as part of Scotland’s top jazz band, the Clyde Valley Stompers. Touring Britain and Germany, the clarinetist even appeared on the same television programme as The Beatles.

It was in later life that a love of writing blossomed, which has continued beyond his 80th birthday, with no plans to put the pen down just yet.

He said: “When I started to write the first Snowball Oranges book, I just started to write that down as snippets that came to mind that I might forget if I did not have a record of them.

“It finished up as a book and I did not honestly think there was much chance of it being published.

“It took 10 years and it did pretty well, to the extent the publishers asked me to do another and another and another, and it became a series of six.

“When those true stories were finished and I had nothing else to write about that particular part of my life, I was bitten by the writing bug.”