Jane Dolby has been on quite a journey since tragically losing her beloved fisherman husband Colin to the sea in 2008.

It has now culminated in the publication of a book, Song of the Sea, published by Orion and due out in bookstores on April 23.

It seems to have been a case of being swept along for the Leigh mother of four, with each door opening on to another.

The book deal came after – in a bid to raise money for the Fishermen’s Mission charity which massively supported her after Colin’s death – she created a choir group called the Fishwives, whose popularity soared way beyond Jane’s original intention for the group.

Jane is still, to this day, amazed at the success of the Fishwives, who have attracted an astonishing amount of media interest, made recordings, and played up and down the country.

“I could never have imagined in a million years it would have become as it has,” she said, “I mean, who would? I started it just to make that single to raise money for the Fishermen’s Mission.

“I genuinely didn’t do it to get publicity for myself – it was just meant to be about a handful of girls trying to raise money for charity. But there was so much media interest.”

Journalists started contacting Jane from all over, wanting to know her story.

“Journalists tend to ask the same questions, and I was answering all their questions from work,” explained Jane.

“My boss was so kind about it, so understanding, never said anything, but I always felt bad that I kept running out to the car to have these chats and decided enough was enough.

“I had started writing a blog after Colin died, which I think about one person read. I only did it for myself, it was just a cathartic process. But I decided to tweak it so it answered more of the questions the journalists asked, and I started sending it to them, so I didn’t have to keep taking time from work.

“One of the journalists, this really lovely lady, who is an author of books herself, said it was really beautifully written and said she had a literary agent she would like to introduce to me.

“Well, she did and the agent said she wanted to represent me.

Within a few weeks I got a call from Orion, and that was how it happened.”

The book launch is being marked at a now sold-out event at the Fishermen’s Chapel in Old Leigh on April 25, with local book store, the Book Inn, selling copies there. It will be stocked at the Broadway shop before and after the event.

“I do feel really embarrassed in a way,” said Jane, who always feels undeserved of the publicity she receives, and is always keen to deflect it back onto the Fishwives group and the Fishermen’s Mission charity.

It’s a strange dichotomy of feelings and events, given that Jane’s profession has been in public relations.

“Because I have done PR, when I was doing the PR for the Fishwives, talking to the media, in some ways it felt like a job, I felt detached from it,” she said.

“It was almost as if I didn’t make the personal connection and kept forgetting I was involved in it. I’d go into auto pilot. I suppose it might be something like if a nurse or doctor might deal with a member of their family who collapses.

“One of the times it really hit home was when we first watched the video back made of the Fishwives single. I saw all those faces, all those women who had lost someone at sea, and it pierced through.”

When it came to writing the book, working on the drafts and sending them back and forth to the publisher, it was another wave Jane found she was riding out on the hugely complex process of healing from a bereavement.

“Revisiting those emotions, going all back over our relationship like that, and facing it, really made me fall in love with Colin all over again. I was getting tingles and butterflies going through all those times again,” said Jane.

“I thought the publishers just wanted a story about from when Colin died to the Fishwives. But they wanted more about our relationship, a love story.” 

When Jane had first met Colin after moving next door to his dad, she admits she didn’t fancy him at all at first, and just thought he was this “funny little man in a bobble hat who smelled of fish”.

She even admits to feeling rather awkward when it became known how Colin felt about her.

“But he was so different to anyone else I had ever known, and the way he wooed me was so gentle yet so relentless. I think, well, anyone can say they love you, it’s just words, just air, but when someone backs that up with action, you know they mean business, and then I fell for him,” she said.

Jane said the way she has managed to commemorate Colin through her projects has helped her heal.

Echo: Success story – members of the Fishwives Choir

“I also will say, it has been through the support of everyone that I have healed too,” she said. “At the time Colin went missing, I don’t think I have ever felt so much love as I did from the local community. People were beautiful to me, complete strangers, shops raising money for us because they knew we had nothing coming in.

“At a time when I was more broken than I have ever been, I also felt the most love. Friends were amazing, holding the wake for me, taking the kids for the weekend because they knew I was exhausted.

“I will never be able to thank people enough for what they did, and at the time I don’t think I was capable of saying thank you properly, because it was all I could do to stand up, or send a text message.

“I am so grateful to them and it is because of their kindness and support, that when this catastrophic thing that happened – which could have had devastating consequences for my small children if I’d have lost it along the way – I managed to keep going, and the results of their kindness are that my kids are doing great.”