YORK tennis coach Matt Ward has served up an ace bedtime story – just in time for Christmas.

Matt has published a children's picture book, Bedlamb and the Christmas Adventure, taking inspiration from his daughter's favourite toy.

Matt explains: "It is based on my daughter Natasha's special toy that she takes to bed with her, Bedlamb, a toy lamb."

After a few near misses when they nearly lost the toy, it was decided to leave Bedlamb at home when they went on holiday.

It was then that Matt came up with the idea that Bedlamb would be off having adventures while the family were away.

He says he came up with half a dozen story ideas and decided to kick it all off with a Christmas adventure.

Matt self published the picture book – which is aimed at children under the age of five – and found a team of illustrators through Facebook to bring Bedlamb and his friends to life.

"I had to write the brief for each page and give details of how I wanted each page to look and they produced the design. We published it here and printed it in the UK," explains Matt.

In the story, Bedlamb escapes on Christmas Eve and finds Santa, the reindeers and sleigh lying in a mound of snow after an accident. Santa is concussed, so Bedlamb and his friends decide to deliver presents to all the boys and girls in the world on his behalf.

Matt has arranged a number of book signings at WHSmith at Monks Cross and York city centre, where the book is on sale. It is also available on Amazon.

His daughter Natasha, now aged eight, has been helping at the book signings and has also taken the book into school and read it to classmates.

She also features as a character in the book. Matt said: "We wanted to do it for Natasha. She has been so excited about it and come with me to set everything up at the book signings."

The book, which costs £7.99, is also available in Elvington from the Village Shop, Rebecca's Kitchen and the Halo Hair Studio.

Matt, who is a tennis coach at Sutton on Derwent tennis club, will be doing more book signings in the run up to Christmas: at WHSmith Monks Cross on Saturday December 16 from 10am-5pm and Sunday December 17 from 11am-4pm and at WHSmith Coney Street tomorrow from 10am-5pm.

Matt says he has lots of ideas for the next Bedlamb book, including the toy having a pre-school adventure, one underwater and another in a cave. He has set up a blog: theadventuresofbedlamb.com, where fans can choose the next story they would like to see published.

Matt said: "It would be wonderful if it took off. But the main thing was to produce it for Natasha and for her toy to be the hero of the story."