IT WAS as a child evacuated to Dorset that Tony Fuller first grew to love is adopted county.

He is a well-known figure in Chideock – not least for his campaign of direct action to highlight the traffic problems in the village.

Now Mr Fuller, 82, has fulfilled his lifelong ambition to write his life story – a fact made more remarkable as he never finished his formal schooling, being struck down with rheumatic fever at the end of the war.

He said: “It is something I have always wanted to do.

“I have written a trilogy of books and they deal with an evacuee all around Bridport, Swyre, Puncknowle, Chideock and Beaminster.”

Mr Fuller has been in The Bookshop to sign copies of his trilogy – books he wrote primarily for his family.

He said: “I didn’t know my father because he left home when I was six, I was evacuated when I was eight and when I went back I went straight into the army.

“I didn’t know my family at all and I thought my grandchildren and great grandchildren should know something about what life was like.”

And it was hard, it seems.

Mr Fuller was born in a shop doorway in the East End of London. His early life was a struggle against poverty and hunger and, he says, that was the driving force later in his life.

He said: "Life is hard but poverty is its own stimulation. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose and that can open many doors.”

If his early years were hard, being evacuated was an even bigger shock.

He said: “For instance on my first week I had to go to Puncknowle Church Sunday School, something I’d never done before.

“I was going around the corner and saw this field of corn, I’d never seen it before and thought it was just lovely long grass.

“I went in played hide and seek and flattened half an acre.

“The following morning headmistress said there was somebody in the school to talk to the children. A policeman came in al of 6ft he talked about the war effort and digging for victory.”

He then pointed to Mr Fuller and said he’d put him in prison for the damage to the crop unless he took the farmer’s punishment..

“The farmer took me out into stable, laid me over a bale and horsewhipped me until the blood was running down my legs.

“It was a ten minute walk home but it took me an hour and a quarter.

“There are lots of things like that in the books that kids of today wouldn’t know.

“We didn’t have any water or electricity and we had to go to one tap in the village, the blackout and no television, not even the wireless.

“There were so many thing and I thought it ought to be said.”