IF nothing else, the title of Val Robson's latest work of fun and fiction will have people snatching it off the bookshelves in disbelief.

But their eyes will not be deceiving them . . . it really is called A Pint In The Weird S*** Pub.

Her tongue-in-cheek observations of life in East Lancashire are echoes of things that happen in most parts of Britain -- chip pan fires, nasty injuries caused by flying roof slates, strange folk tapping you up for a free pint and a cat that thinks a large potted plant in the hall is his litter tray.

Droll, full of dry wit and clever studies of society, the book has been written by a 58-year-old Hampshire-born mother-of-four who moved to Blackburn 25 years ago from London and has just retired from her role as staff counsellor and trainer at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

But if you didn't know this, you would find it difficult to categorise the writer as Val manages skilfully to disengage herself from the action and take on the role of a somewhat bemused observer of the happenings around her.

"The police helicopter likes our road after dark and we are sometimes treated to searchlight displays that go on for hours," she writes. "Once I almost went out into the garden with my hands up, to give them some encouragement."

And as for the pub in the title, it is, she says, "the Queen Somebody-or-other, I think, but we call it the Weird S*** pub because of the strange people that use it and the events that go on there."

It used to have a well-kept bowling green but gradually became a dumping ground for old sofas burned on Guy Fawkes' Night.

"I have pictures in my head of the drinkers sitting round a fire on the discarded sofas with bottles of White Lightning and each sofa being dragged out from under them and kicked towards the fire," Val observes.

This composed lady's calm exterior hides a fine eye for detail and a sharp wit that shines through in her book.

But Val, who lives on the outskirts of Blackburn with her husband Pete, is more proud of two novels she has not yet had published -- one a "rather bleak" psychological thriller about a woman in a psychiatric hospital and the other a Gothic murder romance.

Val is no stranger to having her work published. Another string to her bow is writing tales of terror and she had already had horror stories included in American anthologies. She has just sent off a comedy radio script to the BBC, a surreal play about a lift that "takes you down to Hell and doesn't really go where you want it to".

She said: "I am a person with a fairly buzzing mind and quite a vivid imagination. Lots of thoughts and ideas are flipping through and I keep notes and add remarks that people make, although I don't use them verbatim."

Val and Pete and their two elder sons moved from Hackney to Lancashire a quarter of a century ago, leaving all their family behind. Another son was born here and they fostered the fourth.

"We did a lot of agonising. It was an upheaval, but we were made very welcome in Lancashire," Val said.

"Hampshire is a stockbroker belt and a very middle-upper class Tory heartland and I didn't fit in there."

She very much enjoyed her university work, where she was dealing solely with staff issues.

"I found humour was very useful in helping people to put something in proportion. It is an antidote to the serious stuff," she said.

She began to write her book, partly paid for by herself and published by Vanguard Press, two years ago.

"We are a family who laugh a lot and I thought I would try writing something down. Pete, who is very encouraging, said, 'this is quite funny, send it off.'

"I have always been humorous and I have had to be quite robust as a person to deal with the general testosterone levels of large males around the place."

But it looks as if Val's time in Blackburn is about to come to an end.

Pete's job in Cheshire involves him enduring a daily 100-mile round trip and they are thinking of moving a bit further south.

"I'll be sorry to leave Blackburn in many ways, but the weather is vile and I'd like to go somewhere that's a bit drier," she said.

Already, though, there's the idea for another book germinating in her brain as she begins house-hunting.

"People tell you some things about why they are leaving and it always seems to be a crisis," she said. "There's definitely another book in there."

Val's book can be ordered through all leading bookshops -- published by Vanguard Press, the ISBN is 1-903489-83-0.