FORMER mental health nurse, amateur historian and writer Keith Genever has combined three important aspects of his life by turning the time he spent working at Roundway Hospital into a book.

Mr Genever, 78, who spent most of his life in Devizes but now lives in Bromham, has written Under Lock And Key which tells of his time at the old psychiatric hospital in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Mr Genever, joined the wards as a 17-year-old and worked his way up to be a charge nurse when the hospital closed in 1994. He said: "When I first joined the hospital the care of the mentally ill was very different to what it is now. I was the third generation of my family to work there following on from my father and grandfather."

He is selling the book priced at £12 at Devizes Books and says he will donate money to Cancer Research for each copy sold.

He has sold 3,000 copies of his previous book the Battle of Roundway Down which took him 38 years to research.