West Cumbrian authors collected the glittering prizes at this year's ‘Booker of the North,’ which took place on Tuesday at Armathwaite Hall Country House and Spa at Bassenthwaite.

Local authors waited in expectation for the Cumbria Tourism Lakeland Book of the Year Award, now in its 26th year.

Author Hunter Davies, of Loweswater, who founded the awards with the tourist board in 1984, finally snapped the tension by announcing the front-runners from nearly 100 entries.

He revealed that two books from West Cumbrian authors had vied for the top award.

Hercules and the Farmer’s Wife; And Other Stories from a Cumbrian Art Gallery by Chris Wadsworth, the owner of Castlegate House Art Gallery in Cockermouth, pipped Joss: The Life and Times of the Legendary Lake District Fell Runner and Shepherd by Keswick writer Keith Richardson, who had triumphed with his book Ivver Sen in 2009.

Hercules and the Farmer's Wife, which also took the Bookends prize for arts and literature, is Chris Wadsworth’s vivid account of the artists, customers and residents who visit her Cockermouth gallery.

Chris said: “When people ask me ‘How long did it take him or her to do this painting? I say maybe an hour’s work and a lifetime’s experience.’ It was a bit like that with this book. It took about a year.”

Runners-up were two West Cumbrian authors.

Second in the Lakeland Echo prize section was The West Cumbria Flood Disaster 2009: A Photographic Account of Cockermouth and Workington by Richard LM Byers, who is orinally from Harrington Road, Workington, and lives in Moresby Parks, Whitehaven.

Dr Michael Sydney, of Stainburn, Workington, clinched the runner-up spot for the Saint & Co prize with his much-recommended book Bleeding, Blisters and Opium: Joshua Dixon and the Whitehaven Dispensary.