The former owner of a landmark Petersfield shop is about to give bookworms a taste of her life story as a deeply personal memoir will hit the shelves this spring.

It still feels strange to see Lavant Street without the iconic The Bran Tub given its 44-year tenure in the town centre.

But like the shelves of the lost health and wholefoods mecca with its plethora of pulses, Gillian Silverthorn is feeling full of beans after swapping wine for writing.

Gillian’s relationship with drink is explored in Who We Choose To Be, with her memoirs lifting the lid on everything from her bucolic upbringing to her struggles with alcohol.

“It’s coming from a personal angle, like growing up in Greatham and being in the country,” said Gillian, who moved to Sennen at the far end of Cornwall 13 years ago.

“It’s split into three, really, and the last bit is about being sober at 60. In my early 60s I decided I didn’t want to go drinking and I started writing.

“To cope with anything, losing friends or family, moving on, whatever, my way was having to drink to make it end.

“I had to knock that on the head and it opened up my life.”

Her memoirs, which will be published in March, took shape when Gillian started writing down her thoughts in a “cathartic experience”.

The musings which appeared on her @soberat60 Instagram account attracted the attention of Low No Drinker magazine, with Hello picking up the subsequent interview.

She’s since opened up about her previous relationship with alcohol in various magazines and The Independent before Bridgehouse publishing made an approach.

Gillian explains that while the third part of the book is about sobriety, the first two offer thoughts and experiences on the journey from childhood to adulthood.

Needless to say Gillian’s parents, Peter and Anna Roberts, the couple behind The Bran Tub and another Petersfield institution, Compassion in World Farming, are mentioned.

She said: “Like a lot of memoirs it goes back and forward, and I go into growing up in the country with mum and dad, going into adulthood and having to say goodbye to the place you grew up in.

“It’s ultimately about love, loss and finding yourself.”

Post readers may also remember Gillian from challenges like running marathons in a 12kg rhino costume, climbing Kilimanjaro and doing 2,000 laps of her patio to raise awareness for Save the Rhino.

Although she’s happy in Cornwall, she seems proud of her legacy in Petersfield and misses its greenery.

She said: “The Bran Tub doesn’t feature in the book apart from a bit where I come back and shut it down.

“We nearly made 45 years, which is something – I was 17 when mum and dad opened it

“I do miss it but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy here.

“I love Penzance but I miss friends and the greenery around Petersfield, like all the trees at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. We don’t have many down here.”