TWO years on from releasing a best-selling book about her childhood, local author Rosemary Penfold has returned with another collection of reminiscences and remembrances.

A Posy Of Wild Flowers is the Weston-based author’s second book and again draws strongly from her recollection of growing up in a gypsy family in North Somerset.

The 74-year-old became a literary sensation when she released her first book A Field Full Of Butterflies two years ago.

A memoir of her life growing up in a gypsy family in Hewish, it became a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller, sold 50,000 copies in its first four weeks and has been reprinted nine times.

Her second book continues the narrative of her first book, while also including recollections from her time working for social services.

Contrasting the importance of family and community in the gypsy world she grew up in with the loneliness and sadness she discovered through her work, it also paints an evocative picture of the North Somerset countryside.

The author, who lives in Dunster Crescent in Weston, said: “I wrote my first book because I had always wanted to write one, but it did so well that I was asked to do another one.

“It was a bit different the second time round as I wasn’t writing anecdotally as I had been in the first one.

“I suppose it is a bit of a sequel to A Field Full Of Butterflies, although I haven’t written about that same things, I didn’t want to rehash anything.

“Some of it is going on from my first book, but it’s also drawing on the fact that I was with social service for 21 years, and the people I met while working there.

“I found a lot of loneliness and it really made me think differently about my life.”

A Posy Of Wild Flowers is out now in selected book shops including Waterstones and is available on Amazon.