THE woman who taught Countdown brainiac Rachel Riley how to count will now be showing youngsters that money doesn’t really grow on trees as she launches a new children’s book. Celia Riley, Rachel’s mum, has published her first children’s book, entitled “The Money Tree”, during lockdown.

The 63-year-old, who still lives in Thorpe Bay, has always been a keen writer and decided to work on the illustrated book during lockdown after retiring.

Aimed at four to eight-year-olds, “The Money Tree”, tells the story of young Gregory, a greedy little boy who tries to grow his own money tree, but is faced with a few obstacles along the way.

Celia, 63, said: “I’ve been writing for years - when I was at school I wanted to be a journalist.

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Proud - Celia with copies of her book "The Money Tree"

“But I was given bad advice at school and told that to be a journalist I would have to go to the Elephant and Castle College of Journalism to do a course but only two per cent of people come out with a job so it was off-putting.”

During lockdown, Celia, a former fundraising manager, decided to focus on getting her children’s book published, and teamed up with illustrator, Bill Newman, a friend of hers based in South Ockendon.

She said: “Bill is a fabulous portrait painter and he wasn’t getting many jobs due to the pandemic so he did some lovely illustrations for me.

“He’d never done children’s illustrations before but he did a brilliant job.”

Celia, adds: “It was a bit painful learning how to format it for Amazon but I did it and now have books two and three written - I have a million ideas in my head for stories that are quite original.

“I have a four year old grandson, Finlay, and one of the next books I have written is about him and I also have a little granddaughter who is coming up for one - Rachel’s daughter Maven.

"I’m hoping we get out of lockdown in time to spend Christmas with her.”

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Family Fortunes - The Riley family will appear on the show this Sunday

Celia, who says that her Southend-born celebrity daughter, Rachel, is very supportive of her, will be appearing on Family Fortunes this Sunday on ITV, presented by Gino D’Acampo, with Rachel and her husband and former Strictly star, Pasha Kovalev.

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Book cover - "The Money Tree" will make a great stocking filler

"The Money Tree" is available to buy now on Amazon - click here.