A WINSFORD war veteran is aiming for glory with the release of his second book – at the age of 83.

While most retirees are happy to but their feet up during retirement, William Prater decided he was going to fulfil a life-long ambition.

William, known to friends as Bill, had his first book – a psychological thriller called The Flyleaf Killer – published in hardback in 2007, followed by an Amazon Kindle edition in 2012.

“It was always something I wanted to do,” Bill said. “Unfortunately I never really got chance until I left the army, and even then I kept getting distracted. Once I retired I had lots of time on my hands.”

And now Bill, who is originally from Surrey, is hoping to wow readers with his latest offering, a fantasy yarn for all ages, The Key to Skandos.

“I set out to write something totally different from the first book,” Bill said. “I don’t have to write for financial gain, I write because I love doing it.

“I approached it the same as the first one. I had the last line in my head and just wrote towards that. I have quite a vivid imagination.”

Bill joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in 1948 where he served in the Far Eastern Land Forces Hong Kong and with the 1st Commonwealth Division during the Korean War.

He returned to the UK in 1952 and spent another nine years in the army before leaving in 1962.

It was only when he retired many years later that Bill decided to write his first book, The Flyleaf Killer, which he describes as graphic, gritty and compelling.

“I just sat down and wrote it,” Bill said. “I didn’t write to a plot. I had an idea how I wanted it to end but I pretty much wrote it as I went along.

“It’s extremely dark. Heaven forbid that a character like that is actually walking around the earth.”

And Bill says he still has plenty more stories to tell, with a possible spin-off from The Key to Skandos in the pipeline.

The Key to Skandos is out now on Amazon Kindle.