A significant part of researching the story of the Buttercup involved the tracking down and interviewing of former employees of the company and relatives of Andrew Ewing, most of whom were well into their 80s and 90s, with the oldest being ninety-six. They were all wonderful people and I felt an obligation to finish the book and publish it as quickly as possible, so that they would still be alive to see it.

I carried out most of the interviews in 2009 and by the middle of 2010 had a working draft, which I thought was good enough to send off to potential publishers. Little did I know, at this stage, how difficult this would be and the length of time it can take to have a book accepted and published. I was also pretty peeved at the standard response which was along the line that if you haven't heard from us in six months you can assume that we don't want it! I rang a few firms to explain that I didn't have time for this but it mostly got nowhere, although one manager did give me a positive answer, saying that nobody had heard of Andrew Ewing. He didn't seem to understand that this was the whole point of the book – rescuing a great man from obscurity! It was also a great story.

I put up with this for a few months and then thought "to hell with it, I haven't got time for this". So I decided to form my own publishing company and Leghorn Books Ltd was born – the name being my grandmother's maiden name and also the breed of hen used at the Buttercup Poultry Farm!

Thereafter it was full speed ahead with editing and then design – both a lot more involved than I had thought, with the pursuit of perfection being particularly time consuming. However, I was glad to be in control of the process since this was my 'baby' and I wanted it to be right – a fact confirmed by both my editor and designer who both thought I was a pain in the ass!"

The book was finally ready for printing in mid 2011, which posed yet another dilemma. The cheapest option was for black and white with pictures inserted in sections, but I wanted it to have colour pictures running through the text, which was much more expensive and required a higher quality paper. Initially, the sums just didn't add up but after a bit of shopping around and negotiation I finally got a price that worked and 'The Buttercup' was published in July 2011.

Getting it reviewed was a bit of a problem, with one sniffy individual saying that he didn't review self published books! I was pleased to respond that I didn't really care since the Scotsman newspaper (The national newspaper of Scotland) was going to run a two page feature article in full colour!

As for the old ladies and gentlemen - they all survived to read the book and I had great pleasure in hand delivering their copies.The Buttercup: The Remarkable Story of Andrew Ewing and the Buttercup Dairy Company http://www.buttercupdairycompany.co.uk/