A BOOK written by ex-boxer Alex Brown from Musselburgh is set to go on sale on June 6.

The 54-year-old, who owns Ideal Flooring Solutions on Musselburgh High Street and Tranent’s Bronx Boxing Gym, is on the verge of launching Hit Me, which is also being pitched to Hollywood executives as a movie.

Alex said: “While I have toyed with the book for many years, I really took it seriously just over a year ago and it has been very hard work but worthwhile.

“I chose to release the book on June 6 as it is my mum June’s birthday. She died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 66.

“It is also the date my father Alex was laid to rest. He also died of cancer in 2014, aged 72.

“The book is about an ex-boxer who is diagnosed with cancer and ends up in the fight of his life.”

Alex added: “It took a long time to get to this point but I am happy with the outcome.”

The book, Alex’s first, will now be read by family and friends, as well as local radio supremo Davie Martin of Radio Saltire and Stephen Miller, who wrote Johnny Cash: The Life of an American Icon, before being sent to print.

Hit Me tells the story of Barnabas Wild, an outgoing, happy character who has been lucky in everything he has done. The main character is named after a clergyman who served for 30 years at the former Tranent Methodist Church, which was transformed into the Bronx gym.

Known as Barny to his many friends, the book’s central character is given bad news and less than a month to live following a cancer test result. With a debilitating fear of illness and hospitals, he cannot face the slow agony of dying in a cancer ward, which he knows only too well, as his parents and younger brother all died this way.

Devastated and unable to bring himself to suicide, he contacts a childhood friend, now crime boss in Edinburgh, to have a hit put on him.

But Barney then receives an urgent call from a consultant at the hospital who explains an error in recent test results. He does not have cancer. Barney rushes to have the hit taken off, but the crime boss has gone missing.

With a lifelong interest in movies, Alex, a keen charity marathon runner, owned three video hire shops in the 1980s.

He said: “I have discussed with a production company the possibility of a YouTube trailer for a movie. If the book is well-received, I feel it has a very good chance of becoming a movie as there has been a lot of interest, but you never know.”

Alex has been helped with a ‘treatment’ of the story by freelance writer Stephen Cairns, of Ethos Writing, who works with his wife Ana Petrusevski, also a writer, on creative projects. This conveys the main points, incidents and characters into about two to four pages which he could then use to pitch to a film maker or turn the book into a screenplay.

Mr Cairns said: “We’ve really enjoyed this project and working with Alex has been a blast.

“His electric energy is contagious and the story has grown into something special. I like the way Alex’s boxing theme runs through the book.”

He added that the book was also “causing a bit of stir” in Australia, where Ana, who is visiting the country, has given sample chapters to publishers and film producers.

Alex is due to feature on Mr Martin’s Sunday morning radio show in the next few weeks to talk about the book, which will be available in hard copy from Amazon from June 6 and as an eBook later in the year.

He is now working on a selection of short stories involving all the original characters from Hit Me.