JUNE Macbeth has come a long way since she began work as 15-year-old making gloves in the former Dent's factory in Leominster.

The life of the Eye-born great-grandmother has included a nursing career, world-wide travel, years of struggle to launch a second career as an author and piles of publishers' rejection slips. And now, at 64, pure joy.

Dogged determination and two years of research on a Native American tribe has paid off with the publication of June's novel 'Shadow of the Eagle,' written under the pen name Augustine Nash.

The book has created a flurry of interest. June is getting invitations to speak at functions and she has high hopes that some of her other work may now attract attention.

Her output is impressive. She has written 10 other, as yet unpublished, novels. She also wrote and illustrated two children's' books and a book of poetry. Her recent breakthrough has made her buoyant with hope.

"I have a burning ambition to succeed by writing a best seller," says June. "Who knows, I might even have a go at the Booker Prize! That is all in the future."

It's been a long, hard road from Brick Buildings, Eye. June, born June Holland, had three brothers, John, Jeffrey and Grenville and one sister, Joyce.

The family moved to a timber-framed cottage, The Lydiattes at Eyton (pictured) when June was six months old. June attended the former Eyton School, and later, Leominster Secondary Modern, before going to work in the glove factory.

June's father, Ernest Holland, worked as a gardener for Frank Dale at Eyton Hall until he retired. Ernest, and June's mother Kathleen, then emigrated to Australia to join other members of the family.

June's path took her elsewhere. She married at the age of 16 after falling in love with a young airman who was stationed with the RAF at Shobdon, Victor Macbeth, her husband of 48 years.

Nursing work

The couple, who have a son and two daughters, were posted to Singapore and then Malta before coming back to England and buying Victor's old family home in a North Essex village.

June worked in nursing at a special needs hospital for 23 years, where Victor also worked, but was always troubled by a creative 'itch.'

But there was more living and travelling to do before June got down to some serious writing. With her whole family - parents, brother and sisters - all settled at Perth, Western Australia, June and Victor emigrated to join them. They also toured the north and south islands of New Zealand.

Homesickness eventually forced them to return to the UK, but while in Australia, June stumbled upon a newspaper article about the Nez Perce tribes of North America.

She started researching them and became hooked, spending two years delving into her subject - then another two years writing the book, which is part fact/part fiction. She re-wrote it three times.

June said:"It took me nine long years for the book to be published, after hundreds of rejection slips - enough to paper a whole room!" (Echoes of F.Scott Fitzgerald ).

She carried on writing but her breakthrough has come with that first venture. Colchester-based internet firm Bloozoo chose to publish her manuscript from hundreds they receive.

The story is a dramatic one with all the right ingredients, love, death, betrayal and hope, set against a vast backdrop of mountains, great rivers and plains.

Even with the book in her hands June can hardly believe her luck. But her feet are on the ground. She is busy writing a sequel, 'Black Eagle Returns,' which will be published in the summer.

l Shadow of the Eagle by Augustine Nash is published by Bloozoo at £8.99. (Telephone 01206 868200 or via the internet at www.bloozoo.com/propshopwin.exe)