LOOKING at gran Alanah Belk it may be hard to imagine she was once immersed in the skinhead scene of the 70s and 80s.

But Alanah has now put together a fascinating collection of stories about the characters and places she remembers from her youth.

Entitled A Bag of Nails, it is described as ‘a true and brutally honest account of the lives of typical teenage lads and girls in the 70s and 80s’.

Based around Alanah’s own experiences, it covers skinhead culture from the clothes and music through to territorial gang battles, football armies and encounters with the police.

The book has become a word-of-mouth hit, generating a huge amount of praise from readers and a five-star rating on Amazon.

Alanah, who grew up in Albert Street, Kearsley, says she has been ‘amazed’ by the enthusiastic reaction to the book.

The 62-year-old said: “I lost my husband a couple of years ago and I used to spend most nights putting pen to paper, writing things about my past. If I thought of a story I wrote it down.

“A friend of mine came round and I had all these papers I had been sitting on, feeling sorry for myself – I was a bit depressed – and my friend said 'write a book'.

“I put it on Amazon and Facebook and people kept ringing and ordering it – it was unbelievable.

“Since then the number of people who have rung back and said, ‘I couldn’t put the book down, it was brilliant’ is amazing. I didn’t expect anything like this.”

From the age of 14 the former St Gregory’s school pupil was a part of Farnworth’s Brackley Street-based Market Inn gang.

And part of the book’s hard-hitting, yet nostalgic, appeal lies in settings that will be familiar to a generation of the borough’s readers.

The stories take place against a background of well-loved haunts including The Big Apple in Farnworth (later Troggs), the Palais de Danse (later Ikon), Vava and Blighty’s in Bolton.

Each chapter focuses on different characters — although only those who have given their permission are referred to by their real names.

Alanah,a mum-of-two and grandmother-of-three and said: “The book is called A Bag of Nails because I’ve always thought people were like a bag of nails – different sizes, different purposes, some you never use again, some become parts of large structures that are there forever. I have always thought each person is a different type and size of nail.

“There are a lot of funny incidents as well as sad incidents in the book, but that’s what life is made up of and it explains people’s reactions to things.

“Everyone can relate to certain characters. We all know certain people who might have done this or that.”

But despite the gritty nature of some of the tales of Bolton and Farnworth nightlife, Alanah says she misses what is now a bygone era.

She said: “It was the camaraderie we all had with each other, the friendships, the loyalty, everything – it was completely different to nowadays. There was no competition to have the best pair of trainers, everybody just shared and cared.”

Alanah’s late husband, Tommy, was her boyfriend back then and the pair were together for a total of 43 years.

And she says penning the book has helped her come to terms with her loss.

She said: “It brought back all the nice memories. As you get older you forget, but if you put them in a book you can’t forget.”

And Alanah, who now lives in Presto Street, Farnworth, says that while people grew up and moved on from the skinhead scene, most of them have remained friends to this day.

She said: “We are all still good friends now, we used to have a saying at the Northern Soul clubs ‘Keep the Faith’.

"It was a very loyal group of people and even nowadays are loyal and share good memories of the past.”

The success of the book has now prompted Alanah to publish a sequel A Bag of Nails 2: For Old Times Sake which is due for release tomorrow.

To buy a copy of A Bag of Nails either in paperback or for Kindle visit amazon.co.uk/BAG-NAILS-ALANAH-BELK-ebook/dp/B0783154NW or call 07504 506949.