A POET’S collection of works that was originally written on the side of an oven has been republished.

Gordon Hoyles, owner of the Hotel Continental in Marine Parade, Dovercourt, has seen his collection of works, entitled the Tin Book, rereleased and is now available to buy on Amazon, along with another anthology, entitled The Roll of the Artist, which was originally written by wife Blossom on lined paper.

A reading from the collection was performed by Mr Hoyles at the hotel on Friday night – and he is at a loss to explain why he wrote a poem on the side of the cooking equipment.

He said: “I don’t know why I started it, but I wrote a poem on the side of a gas oven in around 1978 when we were living in Yorkshire.

“Then someone really took a liking to it and ended up hanging it in their shop.

“Eventually, they were hanging up all over the place and we had to keep moving them around and changing them around.

“We now only have two or three editions left of the original because we gave some of them away and others will have got lost.”

Although Mr Hoyles has less time to write now, he and Blossom run a popular poetry group from the hotel, which holds monthly meetings for members.