Jack and Audre' Clarke moved to Torquay several years ago after Jack had fallen ill and his doctor recommended a less hectic lifestyle.

In 1997 Audre' also suffered from ill health and - as part of the recovery process - was encouraged to keep a diary of how she was feeling from day to day.

Jack and Audre' enjoy living in South Devon.

As Audre''s health improved, Jack suggested she might like to carry on writing - but turn her attention to storytelling.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, she decided to give it a go. "I found it really exciting," she said. "Once I started I couldn't stop - the ideas just kept flowing."

The couple wanted to do something to repay the medical profession for all the help they had received when they were ill - and so the first chapter in their audio storytelling project began.

Audre' writes the stories then records them onto cassette. Jack, who has been a musician all his life, then edits them and adds appropriate music that he plays on his electronic keyboard.

Audre' records another story

"If it's a nautical story, I might play Ebb Tide or something like that," he explains.

The long process of copying the finished story onto tape then begins. They have no modern duplicating studio - just a domestic hi-fi system linked to a second. The original tape gets played in one and two copies are recorded in the other.

Children's stories

The completed tapes are then distributed to housebound listeners and hospital patients. It started in quite a small way with Audre' recording for friends and neighbours, but news of her stories travelled fast and now her tapes end up all over Devon.

Jack adds musical accompaniment to Audre''s stories.

More recently Audre' has turned her hand to children's stories - giving Jack the challenge of coming up with some suitable music.

"I'm not sure I'm up on the modern pop," he says, "so I thought I'd use traditional nursery rhymes."

Now though, the couple - who also do a lot of fundraising for local charities including the Devon Air Ambulance, have stumbled upon a problem.

Modern technology marches on and they've run out of cassette tapes to record their stories on. "I've even tried writing to some of the manufacturers," said Audre', "but they didn't even bother to reply."

All the copying is done on a domestic hi-fi

"We're in need of any cassette tapes, it doesn't matter if they're not new as we can re-use them. We would prefer shorter ones though, as the C90s are a bit long."

Jack and Audre' are hoping they can source a new supply of tapes so they can go on with their recordings - but until then we'll just have to wait for the next chapter in this continuing saga.

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