THE final draft has been typed and the manuscript is at the printers. All retired firefighter Vaughan Thomas can do now is to hope that his novel puts him on the ladder to literary success.

The book's title is The Chaste Fireman, and, Vaughan insists, only the parts relating to actual firefighting are in any way biographical.

A married man, he was born in Whitchurch in Cardiff, and went into the Royal Artillery before gaining a degree in psychology and joining the Birmingham Fire Service, in which he served for 23 years.

"I decided to go into the fire service, which claimed it was looking for graduates," he recalls, relaxing in his house on a small estate the Gwehelog side of Usk.

"In fact, they didn't want graduates at all. Quite the opposite - there was a strong anti-graduate bias. The higher ranks were set in their ways of doing things."

One senses that the writer did not enjoy some of the macho aspects of the fire service.

"Having said that, there was a lot of humour and a superb sense of comradeship and real humanity."

In his book he writes of a senior fireman called to where somebody has jumped from a block of flats. "Come and have a look at this," he says, taking a recruit over to the body.

His first book was about a fire in the Channel Tunnel, but the book never arrived on a publisher's desk.

Like many struggling writers, Thomas is critical of the inbuilt conservatism of the publishing industry.

"They go for the names they know will sell," he laments. "Once upon a time, when you got a rejection slip, there was usually a note saying where they thought you had gone wrong, or pointing out something that could be improved. No you get the bald rejection."

The Chaste Fireman's title is self-explanatory. It would not be fair to call it a romp, but it opens with a sex scene and sex remains the theme. The fireman in question spends most of his time trying to rid himself of the chastity with which he has been burdened.

When no conventional publisher could be found, Vaughan Thomas decided to publish the book himself.

"Suddenly you find that as well as being a writer you also have to be a businessman. Having got the book printed, you then have to arrange for sales and circulation. You probably won't make all that much money."

The Chaste Fireman, by Vaughan Thomas, published by Plane Tree Publishing, is to be released in March at £8, available at branches of W H Smith and Waterstone's.