I HAVE made a career out of writing. That’s no surprise, really. My mother named me after a book. Young Renny.

That’s my middle name. Renny.

He was the main character in the Whiteoaks saga, a series of books by Canadian author Mazo de la Roche.

They were published mostly in the 1930s and my mum loved them.

The local vicar took a dim view of it. He refused to Christen me, saying that it wasn’t a proper name. My mum wasn’t deterred. She took me down the road to the next church and they did the job. That’s how I became a Methodist.

But then my mum loved reading. And she passed that passion for the printed page on to me. When I was little she’d read Enid Blyton to me. Stories about Noddy and Big Ears. PC Plod.

I couldn’t get enough of the Revd W Awry’s tales of Thomas The Tank Engine. We had all of them, in little hardback editions, in which my mum had neatly inscribed my name at the front.

We read the adventures of The Famous Five and The Secret Seven together. Enid Blyton may be out of favour these days, but those stories were eagerly awaited in our home.

And when I was very ill with appendicitis, she read Tarzan to me, making the stories come alive. I loved Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which we’d read to each other. Macavity wasn’t there.

It was a big day when I got my first library ticket. We went up the hill to Marple Library and spent hours looking at the books. To this day I can’t resist a shelf full of books, can’t pass a bookshop on the high street.

Sadly, I can’t find any pictures of the library as we knew it – it was rebuilt in 1974 – but it was situated next to the old Marple Urban District Council offices in the town’s Memorial Park, pictured above.

We’d visit Sherratt & Hughes in Stockport to buy books. Although mum and dad were hard up, books somehow always appeared at birthdays, at Christmas and at odd times in between.

There were books about astronomy and dinsosaurs. What kid doesn’t love space travel and T Rex?

I read comics, too. Dandy, Beano, Valiant, Hotspur. There was a story in Hotspur about a school trapped inside an invisible force field and that sparked a love of science fiction that my mum and I shared forever.

I think we read just about every science fiction book Marple Library had. Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, Clifford Simak. She loved crosswords, too – another legacy that lingers.

When an American girl joined my primary school class and introduced us all to Superman, Batman and Green Lantern I took them home and, although she raised an eyebrow – we’ve all had the raised eyebrow treatment – she read them, too.

We both read The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. There was a shared love of Alistair Maclean and Jack Higgins thrillers, too.  There were Readers Digest Condensed Books, a World Books membership which delivered a new hardback every month.

Mum’s own favourites included HE Bates and HG Wells – my, how they liked their initials! – a good old Agatha Christie whodunnit, an Alastair MacLean thriller.

But in later years she enjoyed James Herbert, David Hewson and Mark Billingham. She eagerly awaited every new Stephen King, and had just read his Joyland when she fell ill, and reading no longer became an option.

At the hospital and nursing home they described my mum as a sweet little old lady. If only they knew the sort of stories she read, full of horror, violence, sex and the supernatural. Even my dad was shocked when he took a look at them!

But above all, I remember more innocent days, of Mum reading to me those bedtime stories, a tradition I carried on with my own children, Simon and Sara – reading Peace At Last, Truckers and the Pyjama Shop stories I’d make up.

Just over ten years ago, I read a bedtime story to my grandson Zachary for the first time, a tale about a sleepy tractor. I read Thomas the tank engine with him, too. I’ve since been blessed with two more grandchildren – Miles and Peri – with whom I cherish sharing my love of books. Mum would approve.

In loving memory of Jean Cole 1931-2014. She died five months after my dad passed away in October 2013. They’d barely spent a day apart since they were married.

This tribute was written as the foundation for the eulogy I read at my mother’s funeral service in 2014. I have revised only a few details since.

Read more: On the 10th anniversary of his death, how my dad gave me a lifelong love of music.