A FORMER Herefordshire policeman is making his way as an author after settling in Vietnam.

John Cooper was the 'village bobby' for Whitchurch/Goodrich and Symonds Yat area from 1982 to 2004.

"It was a time of great change when the village police station, where I lived with my young family, ceased to be a police station and became 'home'," he said.

"Although the police sign disappeared I didn't and for years afterwards people were always turning up for a chat, a moan, or a bit of advice."

During his later years with the force, he became a 'beat manager', with his policing duties augmented by an additional element of public engagement and crime prevention.

And there were results with a public-funded camera system at Goodrich Castle car park, a trial of small smart TVs in rural post offices displaying updateable crime information, an email-based weekly crime report, a sponsored car for the use of beat managers and eventually the creation and establishment of a residential support house for ex-prisoners with substance-abuse problems.

Retirement saw him simply move sideways to manage the charity that operated the support house.

However, in 2010, he decided to rekindle a love affair with the sights, sounds and smells of South East Asia where, as a young man, he served for nine years in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, crewing two aircraft carriers HMS Bulwark and HMS Eagle.

And so he settled in the sunshine of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in the south of Vietnam.

John now passes his time writing books, swimming and in his words 'wrestling with his piano'.

His books are published on Amazon kindle in ebook format and the 'adult' books (Subject to Status, Black Nothing, The Ten Bob Notes, The Gun and New Horizon) are also available in paperback format at Amazon Books.

He has five 'historical adult drama' novels, three short stories and four children's books published under his full name John Arthur Cooper.