Local author Ian Carpenter turned a whim, to respond to every job advertised in a single issue of the Guardian newspaper, first into a blog and now into a book which is available from Ross Book Shop.

Ian lives in the Forest of Dean, near to where he grew up, he went to school in Monmouth and worked for a time at the Cheltenham and Gloucester branch in Ross.

By 2007 he had moved into property management in Essex but the country was entering the recession and he knew redundancy could be on the cards. So he had the idle thought that maybe he should respond to every advertisement in a single 2007 issue of Guardianwork. When he told a colleague Ian was surprised at the positive reaction and set to, to reply to the first of the adverts.