A YOUNG author with a passion for improving the environment has had her first poetry book published.

Freya Crump, 11, decided during lockdown she was going to work on her writing and try to help with a subject close to her heart – climate change.

The Purton youngster worked alongside dad Alex Crump, who is an illustrator and charity worker, on a project to self-publish a book together.

Called Give My World Back it follows the character of Tommy the Turtle, who also has his own Facebook page.

Freya, who attends St Mary’s Primary School, said: “I wanted to spread the message of climate change so more people take notice.

"One of the reasons I did it was to help raise some money for charity. We have picked two charities, the Sea Life Trust and the Marine Conservation Trust.

“It went really well and we did a lot of teamwork. I’m inspired about climate change and I always wanted to be an author so we had lots of fun.

"My friends think the book is really cool.

“I loved seeing the illustrations as I have lots of ideas. I’ve been doing some more writing after lockdown so I might do another about endangered animals and climate change.

Freya says Greta Thunberg is one of her main inspirations, with the teenage activist making a brief appearance.

Alex, 42, said: “It’s a poetry, rhyming book which took us about six weeks to do in lockdown so we had a fun time.

"I told Freya if it was good enough I would help her publish it. She is quite a good client to work with. She has a big hand in it so I run it past her, children are very honest so I often ask her things to do with my work so if she wasn’t happy she would say.

“She was very keen on who was in it so she wanted to include adults littering the sea.

"She has put Donald Trump in there and Boris Johnston disguised with different colour hair in the illustrations and she makes an appearance in it as well. I work by hand to do the watercolour and ink, then it is scanned into the printer.

“Lots of friends and family have bought a copy, an auntie in Singapore and her uncle who works for NASA. The school headteacher has been really supportive too.

"It was really lovely to do in lockdown as it has been such a hard time so it’s nice to do something creative and constructive.

"Her mum is good with the spellings but it was something the two of us could do together. Freya has got some more ideas for stories.”

The pair have sold copies at a socially-distanced village garage sale and online. So far, Freya has made over £150 with 10 per cent of the profits going towards environmental charities.