A Guardian newspaper columnist from Ashford has just published a comedy biography about growing up in the town with his brother.

'Dont Be A D***, Pete', written by Stuart Heritage, 36, went on sale yesterday.

The author said: “It’s like a memoir of the last two years of my life. I lived here until I went to university and then I went abroad and to London ... and then I realised that I don’t like London very much."

Mr Heritage has written for the Guardian since 2009. His weekly column about his young son, Man With a Pram, ran in the paper’s family section between 2015 and 2016.

He continued: “It’s about getting used to moving back where you grew up. When you have grown up somewhere, you form an idea of something and it’s not always the most flattering.

“And then you come back and it’s nice. It’s told through stories about my little brother who’s very different to me.”

The book is described as ‘a hilarious examination of home, family and sibling relationships’. While Mr Heritage went to university, married and had a baby before moving back to Ashford, Pete stayed in Ashford, progressing well in his career. The blurb quips that Mr Heritage is ‘decent, thoughtful, hardworking and kind’ while Pete is ‘quick-tempered, peevish and aggressively pig-headed’.

Mr Heritage said: “By staying here and doing his own thing, he seems to have outshone me. My parents’ house caught fire and I went there and I didn’t really know what to do and he was hugging everyone and cutting off gas and just being really helpful and practical. And that’s when I sort of realised that I’m not the favourite son any more!”

Pete was asked to sign a consent form for the content in the book to be included.

Mr Heritage said: “I let him have right of reply. There’s a couple of chapters where there’s transcribed discussions between the two of us about the book and all the things he thinks are wrong... which is a lot.

“He ran a marathon and I said he it took him 10 minutes longer than it actually did and that was the thing he got most angry about. I think he’s okay about the book now!

“Now we love each other. When we were kids, we fought a lot. Now I think we sort of complete each other.”

Mr Heritage talks about the town within the book: “There’s a lot about Ashford in it.

“As the book goes on, I work through my feelings a bit and talk about how much nicer it is now than 15 years ago.

“I think compared to London, there’s so much space between people and everyone’s not on top of each other and it’s quieter and greener.

“The stuff that’s going on with Park Mall is interesting and the community shops there. There’s a nice community of people if you look out for it.”

Mr Heritage is also founder of celebrity news site, Hedderspray, which was awarded Metro’s Best British Blog in 2007 and placed in the Observer top 50 most powerful blogs in the world.

Ashford Waterstones will hold a meet and greet at the store with Stuart, and his brother Pete, to sign copies of the book tomorrow (Saturday) at 11am.