IT seems fitting that the home of the Bilbury books, (novels set in North Devon featuring colourful characters, rural reflections and a nostalgic look at life), should be found in an intriguing little building in the heart of Barnstaple. Behind the frosted glass of the Publishing House in Trinity Place you'll find none of the mechanisms of a modern day publishers and warehouse. No automation. No industrialisation. Certainly no mass production. The nearest thing to an assembly line is a few ladies busily packing tomes to post to readers.

More than 100 titles are published from this small building. Remarkably, they've all been written by the same author. Books stacked to the ceiling have that fabulous fresh-from-the-press smell and there is a wonderfully rickety staircase.

A visit to this cottage-industry feels a bit like visiting a piece of your own memory. An archetypal traditional publishing house: unchanged, quaint and independent. Much like the fictional world author Dr Vernon Coleman has conjured up in the Bilbury series.

A young doctor works in a small North Devon village, home to a host of eccentric characters. (It's 10 miles east of Barnstaple and three miles from the coast). The latest, Bilbury Pudding, emits a gentle humour, serving up a handful of heart-warming anecdotes that will transport you to the past giving you an insight into old-fashioned village life.

It's littered with lively characters: there's Thumper Robinson, a bit of a lad; Peter Marshall the shop owner who believes in: 'buy two and pay for two'; and Frank and Gilly at the Duck and Puddle.

The Yorkshire Dales may have had their vet in James Herriot but the antics of these North Devon folk are told through a doctor's eyes.

"One of the beauties about having the doctor write the stories is that he gets to go in everyone's house," said Dr Coleman, who used to be a GP in the Midlands. "No one else can get to know things so quickly. If, for example, he had been a school teacher and he'd come to live in the village then he would have enormous difficulty finding out about people's personal habits. Yet because he is the GP he goes into everyone's bedroom. He knows every bedroom in the village. He knows everyone's secrets."

Communities like Bilbury are not extinct even today, maintains Dr Coleman.

"There are parts of North Devon that are still the same as Bilbury. You don't have to go very far out of big city Barnstaple to find them. You can get just a few miles out and you never see a traffic warden. You don't worry too much about policemen and if someone has their garage broken into, it's quite a serious offence."

In Bilbury people help each other out. Front doors are never locked and everyone learns from everyone else.

"The doctor obviously has certain scientific medical knowledge which he can pass on but he learns an awful lot about wildlife and so on from other characters," said Dr Coleman. "He doesn't know anything about tickling for trout, what to do with walnuts from a walnut tree, how to grow runner beans or how to identify birds. He learns all these things from Thumper Robinson who is the archetypal poacher type, of whom I suspect there are thousands in North Devon still."

Bilbury depicts the past. Perhaps, if pockets of North Devon are anything to go by, the present. Dr Coleman asserts: it's also the future.

"In my other life, writing non fiction, I wrote a book about the oil crisis called Oil Apocalypse. "I genuinely believe as the oil runs out so communities will have to go back into being communities again. We won't be able to rely on having all sorts of foreign imports.

"We will become much more self reliant in a local way. Then villages like Bilbury will thrive. They've never become globally orientated. They've remained villages."

If this vision of the future sounds drastic, Dr Coleman believes it is also desirable.

"I rather like the idea of us going back to a life where there are lots of Bilburys and lots of communities that are reliant upon themselves, where people have a respect and an affection for other people in the community."

After three decades of living in North Devon he's certainly a fan of this part of the world.

"I just love the countryside. I came here about 30 years ago so I'm a total newcomer. That's part of the charm, I suppose. The fact that you have to earn your spurs as it were. The people are very friendly. I like the community type world that exists in North Devon. South Devon is more urban even in villages. In North Devon they have preserved the feeling of being cut off by creating the world's most stupid road."

This author is not without opinion. His comment has been featured in the Daily Star, The Sun, Sunday Express and The People. Some will remember his controversial column in the

Journal

.

"I think the editor got a bit nervous occasionally and the column got shorter. Eventually I rang up and said: 'Shall we call it a day?'. It was quite popular for a while. Fun. I enjoyed it. The letters pages tended to be dominated totally by this little column. It was quite good because half the readers were for and half were against, which is really what you want with a column. If everyone agrees with you, you are probably saying something fairly obvious."

He's been outspoken on everything from vaccines to vivisection and his books have not only sold more than two million copies in the UK but been translated into 23 languages.

His non-fiction titles include Bodypower and How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You while his fiction includes Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War, a novel which was turned into a film starring Pauline Collins. He's also rather partial to cats and sometimes writes from a feline perspective.

Genre hopping for an author is unusual. Most publishers tend to specialise. Yet avoiding being pigeonholed was one of the reasons he decided to self-publish. One of his latest political books is called Gordon Is A Moron.

"A big publisher wouldn't publish the books I write because they wouldn't want to upset the government. I don't give a monkeys about upsetting the government. What are they going to do? If they stop me getting my books published I'll write them out in long hand and distribute them on the streets."

Non-fiction aside, he's obviously highly fond of his fictional world:

"I like doing Bilbury. I like writing them and people seem to like reading them. It seems a fairly decent exchange."

Escapism, can be cathartic especially at a time when people are facing economic uncertainly and bad news generally.

"There is always an answer in Bilbury," he smiles. "The people in Bilbury are always being faced with terrible things – either floods, or the council wants to build a housing estate right across the village. The people of Bilbury always win against councils, tempests and whatever life throws at them. To that extent there is a mixture of realism and escapism. Real things happen but they always escape from them."

Dip into Bilbury Pudding and, within the safety of the pages, you'll discover a charmingly familiar world which is unique to North Devon. You'll also discover time-worn remedies for living a happy life.

"I think any piece of fiction, if it is going to work, is going to make you feel at home," said Dr Coleman. "You've got to feel that you are actually involved. I've been writing books about Bilbury for so long I actually believe it exists. Somebody asked me some time ago where I lived and I actually said: 'Bilbury'."

● Bilbury Pudding is available from the website: www.vernoncoleman.com or by phoning: 01271 328892.