Throughout lockdown, a long-term customer of The Usual Place, became a published writer!  Mary Carberry, who’s son volunteers at The Usual Place, published Meet Beanie, a collection of poems inspired by her friends’ cat.

Since becoming available for purchase, Mary’s book has travelled across the world from Australia, to France, to Spain, to Japan and to Arizona!  The books have been sent from relatives to relatives, who have enjoyed the book so much that they’ve posted it abroad.

Mary popped into The Usual Place to have her photograph taken with the book, and here is what she had to say:

“I didn’t set out to make a book.  It happened bit by bit.  I started writing wee stories about the cats who came into our garden for our grandson who was in P1 at the start of lockdown, as I wanted to find a way of helping him with his homeschooling.  Our daughter and her husband were working from home, and don’t live in Dumfries.  I used to send my stories by email and he would read them back to us by video chat which we all enjoyed.  I then started to write wee poems which he loved, and my friend Ros sent me photos of her cat Beanie to send him.

This led me to write the Beanie poems.  I decided to draw some illustrations to accompany the poems to make our grandson a book for his birthday.  That let to me having some books printed by Solway Print that could be used to raise funds for The Usual Place as a “thank you” for all of their support, particularly during the lockdown period.

All of the profit has, and will continue to, gone to The Usual Place.

So if you are a cat lover (child or adult) I think you might enjoy these 10 humorous poems.

The books are on sale exclusively at The Usual Place for £7.  Visit the shop and pick one up!”