Ask first-time novelist Peter Johnson how it feels to see his name nestling alongside world famous authors and his eyes flash back the reply.

The retired personnel worker from Burley-in-Wharfedale may be in his 68th year, but that doesn't stop him taking a near childish delight in the publication of his debut book.

Not that To Build Jerusalem - A Family Torn Apart By Divided Loyalties is Mr Johnson's first taste of the fictional limelight.

A prize-winning short story writer and experienced playwright - four of his dramas have been broadcast on Radio Four - he has already enjoyed a fair slice of literary fame.

But this time, taking on no less a theme than the rise and fall of idealism within a family over half a century, was very different, as he acknowledges.

He said: "I've always been interested in writing and I've read a lot - you could say I'm a lover of the written word.

"But this has been by far my biggest project, although that had a lot to do with the tortuous process of selling the thing.

"I took me 18 months to write and then another four years to get it finally accepted by a publisher and into the shops!

"It actually got quite demoralising, sending the manuscript off to all these different agents only for it to be repeatedly rejected, but in the end I got there! If there's a lesson for any other aspiring authors it's just to keep persevering."

Taking its title from William Blake's famous religious poem, To Build Jerusalem starts in the dark days of the 1930s depression.

The main protagonists, the relatively affluent Mountford family, start off in blissful ignorance of the economic turmoil hitting the rest of the country.

But all that changes when son James rejects parental pressure to enter his father's solicitors firm and heads to Oxford University to become a poet.

He is the first of the author's characters to choose idealism over the safer, more expected, options on offer.

Mr Johnson explains: "The whole story is really about idealism within this family, and of its members working towards creating a better world, against the backdrop of major world changes.

"James has his eyes opened at university to the plight of others, and ends up going off to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

"From the Great Depression the story progresses to the post-war era, with the rise of the welfare state and support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, before ending in the 1980s and the triumph of materialism.

"But all the time I am focusing on how the bigger picture is being understood by different members of the family, of how they are facing the challenges of the future."

Married to Laura, Mr Johnson admits that he didn't even show his wife much of the work-in-progress, preferring instead to unveil the finished manuscript.

Writing regular daily chunks of a tale which "had been evolving for many years", he managed to steer clear of the dreaded 'writer's block', although he does confess to one moment of panic.

"It's quite a long book, more than 400 pages, and at around the half-way stage I thought 'this has been going a long time now and there's still a long way to go!'

"It feels a little bit like setting out on a very long voyage on a small boat. But finishing it off, adding the final full stop, was very rewarding, and to see your own book up there on the shelves next to somebody like Martin Amis is a great feeling!

"They say everyone has one novel inside them but I'm not sure if I've got the energy to write another full-length book.

"I think I'll keep doing the short stories and plays, and see how this one sells."

A keen theatre-goer (he writes reviews for the Ilkley Gazette) and music lover, Mr Johnson has been visiting local bookshops to do his own publicity for the novel.

I asked him if its subject matter was something dear to his heart.

He said: "I suppose the conclusion of the story is quite downbeat, in that the final son, Timothy, becomes a stockbroker in London and ends up as one of Thatcher's children, embracing the consumerism of the 1980s, rather than challenging it.

"And I myself am probably a lapsed idealist. I've never really been very active but always quite interested about what's been going on. So I would describe myself as vaguely idealistic, but perhaps like a lot of people, I've become a bit disillusioned."

lPrinted by Central Publishing Limited, To Build Jerusalem is available from several local outlets, including The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley.