A NORTH-EAST professor is hoping to embark on a new career as a filmmaker - at the age of 62.

Lisa Warner recently retired after 13 years teaching Russian language and literature at Durham University.

Having always had an interest in film, she has now enrolled on a BTEC media production course at Darlington College of Technology, where she is learning the skills needed to be a cameraman.

The course is normally taken on a two-year full-time basis, but Prof Warner is studying two of the course modules, Understanding Video and Video Editing, two days a week, leaving her time to work on her seventh book.

She said: "I have always been interested in filmmaking and have been involved in some documentaries, but never as a cameraman.

"The skills I am learning at the college will help me to make my own films. I am delighted with the course."

Prof Warner, of Melsonby, near Darlington, was co- author of the first British/Soviet co-production of a factual documentary in the 1980s.

For details of the college's media programme, call (01325) 503030.