A WOMAN who overcame polio to raise more than £200,000 for charity is releasing her first book – at the age of 93.

Sheila Ferres raised the money after discovering a talent for painting and has since set up a centre to care for those with dementia.

She has also received an MBE in recognition of being the UK’s longest-serving physiotherapist.

And today Ms Ferres, from Banchory, Aberdeenshire, will release her life story Life Of Giving, two days after celebrating her 93rd birthday.

Ms Ferres said her upbringing was the main reason she had devoted her life to helping others.

She said: “I was one of three girls who were brought up knowing we weren’t going to be spoilt, so every night at dinner we had to say what we had done for someone else. This is the theme of the book I have written: the things I have done for others in my life.

“Unfortunately, I contracted polio from a patient at the age of 30 and  have been severely affected ever since. But it was the finest thing that could have happened, because my experience throughout my whole life has been to give to someone else. 

“Although I have been very handicapped from the age of 30, I have accepted it and used all my knowledge [of what it’s like] to benefit everybody else.”

Ms Ferres has raised more than £200,000 since launching charity Chart in 2000, and set up Banchory’s Bennett House dementia care centre in memory of her sister. All proceeds from the book will go to Chart.