A disabled campaigner who lived in Writhlington for most of her life, has one over- riding mantra. To focus on what she CAN do, not what she CAN'T.

And that gutsy attitude has come together in a book, Taking Steps, which is being promoted at the local library. It's author, Helen Sims hopes that it helps people to understand the kind of struggles a lot of people are living with, but also works as a jolly good read.

Helen, who is 39, moved to Paulton when she married, but was a familiar figure in Writhlington and also in Midsomer Norton, where for the past 20 years she has been attending the writers' circle.

Helen has Cerebral Palsy and growing up was the only person with a physical disability at Writhlington so unsurprisingly perhaps she has, since the age of eight, been campaigning for better understanding of disabled issues.

You may also recall Helen from her many radio interviews and talks about activism.

Helen told Nub News : " The idea for what was eventually to become 'Taking Steps' came to me while I was still on morphine after one of my 'big' operations, age fourteen.

"After the morphine wore off, and throughout my orthopaedic rehabilitation, the idea stuck around. Over many years, it grew up - as I did - and when it was published (twenty years later), it was what I always hoped it would be."

The book has been described as " A gutsy miscellany of poetry, articles, commentary, and short stories". A compendium that Helen says does pretty much sum up her work.

Helen said: " I have always tried to focus on what I can do, rather than all the things I can't, - and use them to make a little difference, somehow.

" But it is so much more than that, " Helen said: " There's a short story, and a poem about Christmas which was such fun to write. There's a poem about an alien visiting earth. There's some 'day to day' stuff, humour...but then there's the serious things too.

"Disability rights, social justice, mental health issues, and feminism. A bit of everything..."

The book is for sale at Peasedown Library, where her father lives, and on EBay.You can also buy her book for £8 from Amazon by clicking HERE : where it is listed on Amazon site