A GRIPPING new novel about the lives of three members of an Anglo-German family that set off from their home in Cornwall to attend a family reunion in Bavaria, Germany, is the work of a Westcountry author who grew up in west Wiltshire.

Geoff Pridmore, 62, attended Kingdown School, Warminster, and later worked for various companies in the area including British Rail in Westbury and the School of Infantry.

His childhood ambition to become a professional writer and author became a reality in the early 1990s when he started writing freelance articles for magazines and newspapers.

In 1995 he left Wiltshire to study Journalism at Falmouth College of Art and Design, where he graduated with a BA Honours degree.

As a student, he was a winning finalist in BBC Radio 4’s Fresh Air Media competition.

Shortly after graduating he was contracted to write the latest Teach Yourself Journalism book by Hodder & Stoughton Educational publishers.

The book – a reference guide for those looking to go into journalism – sold around the world.

His second book, Not the Red Baron, was a biography of British civilian display pilot Robin Bowes, who flew a replica Fokker triplane at air shows across the UK, Ireland and the Continent.

Mr Pridmore was a witness to Bowes’ fatal air crash at Stourhead Gardens near Warminster when the triplane replica he was piloting crashed into a meadow just as the air display – part of the National Trust’s centenary celebrations – was about to begin.

The biography took 18 years to research and complete. To promote the book Mr Pridmore gives talks to various organisations and at events including the Mere Literary Festival and at the Chalke Valley History Festival.

The Reunion is his first novel and tells the story of a former German POW, Hugo Mauer, who, in 1963, takes his young family to their first reunion held in his native Bavarian village where they will meet their German cousins for the first time.

He believes naively that the connections the children make will lead to better understandings and maybe an end to further European conflicts; but there’s one thing he hasn’t taken into consideration – the Wall that divides post-war Germany.

Mr Pridmore, who lives near Camborne in Cornwall, said: "It started off as a film script and then I decided to turn it into a novel.

"It has taken me five to six years to write and my inspiration for the story is my wife Helene, who provides the basis for the character of Hannah in the novel. It is based on her experience of going to Germany with her father."

The Reunion is published by Book Guild Publishing at £8.99. It is available online and at all good book shops.