Sir Lenny Henry returns to beloved Dudley Library after decades away to launch his new book

The author, actor and comedian was back in Dudley on Saturday to officially launch You Can Do Anything, Tyrone at a special event at the library his Auntie Pearl brought him to as a youngster to sign up and start reading books.

The event saw Sir Lenny read the book, which focuses on the special bond between a boy called Tyrone and his grandfather Cleveland, to a group of youngsters and their families, then do a second reading with the children being encouraged to join in with sound effects.

Sir Lenny, 64, said the story was about the bond that builds between Tyrone and granddad Cleveland and how he is inspired to do things by his grandfather, with illustrations by artist Salomey Doku.

Sir Lenny said: "It's about a little boy who expresses his bond with his granddad because his mum is a nurse and his granddad is acting as primary carer and is basically looking after him.

"The little boy is trying to build something, like a space rocket from bricks, and he gives up because he just can't work out how to make it all fit together and his granddad says: 'You can do anything Tyrone. You must roll your sleeves up and give it some elbow grease' and they do it together.

"They do it together and, oh my goodness, they get it right and then it triggers an imaginative and fantastical adventure that they both go on, but fortunately, they're back in time for tea, which I think is going to be a recurring motif."

Sir Lenny said the book, which follows three middle grade adventure stories called The Boy With Wings, The Book of Legends and Attack of the Rampaging Robot, came from his own imagination and how he wanted to write a book about children of colour, having read books to his daughter and found very few.

He also said that a lot of Tyrone came from him as a young person and how what he read fuelled his imagination.

He said: "The books I read when I was a kid were about Narnia and about Jennings and William and the Outlaws and Billy Bunter and there was a guy called Birdie and CS Lewis had a book called the Water Babies, so I was always more about fantasy and magic then I was about realistic things.

"I did like Charles Dickens, but generally, stories with heroes and villains and magic were right up my street and the added thing which I was already aware of was Marvel comics and DC comics, with Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, the Green Lantern and the Green Arrow, so all of that fuels my imagination."

"There's no doubt about it that Tyrone is basically me when I was eight as this is the kid who went to Dudley Library with his auntie and signed up to be a member of the library, so I think that anything that encourages kids to use their imagination like a library and loads of books is a good thing and should be protected."

Sir Lenny said he had dedicated The Book of Legends to the staff of Dudley Library who he said were responsible for all of his writing.

Being back at Dudley Library also brought back the fond memories for him of Auntie Pearl bringing him down to sign up and said while he didn't live in the town anymore, he still regularly visited and said it was a timely reminder of what he didn't have and what he could give Tyrone.

He said: "It's really lovely and I've been been thinking about it all the way up here because my family still live here and while I live in Berkshire now, I still come back and it's a kind of timely reminder of a little kid who didn't have it.

"Tyrone is lucky he's got his granddad as I never had a granddad or grandma and my mum and dad were working all the time, it seemed, and my mum was doing three jobs, so it felt like we never saw her.

"When we did, it was great as we always had food on the table and clothes on our backs, but she never read to us as she wanted to have her time after work, so for me to be able to create a universe where there's a kid who has adventures with his granddad and he reads stories to him is lovely."

He said that as a child, he might have eventually come to books, having always written stories with rockets and wizards and Spider-Man involved, but said he was always thankful to his Auntie Pearl for speeding up the process and spoke warmly about his return to where it all began.

He said: "I've not been back to this library since I left home, but right up until when I was 16, I was a customer here, with the last book being The Car Thief.

"I used to come here all the time and get books out and read them and bring them back and it was a big part of my life.

"I certainly think libraries are an invaluable resource for communities and we should cherish them and anyone who wants to close them down is having short term thinking.

"Libraries are a place where you can go and look for a job, read the papers, get out of the cold and rain and they are not just a place to take books, but a place to shelter, think and grow - and we should protect them."