It is a decade-old mystery Agatha Christie would be proud to call her own.

A pensioner is trying to track down the family of a man who died shortly after handing him his tear-jerking autobiography.

Derek Balsom, of Wordsworth Drive, North Cheam, was admitted to St Helier Hospital in 2001 and briefly befriended the patient, who was suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia, a rare form of the disease.

The man, with only weeks to live, had written his autobiography and asked if Mr Balsom would read through it for him.

But before he could read it the man succumbed to his illness and Mr Balsom was discharged from hospital.

Almost a decade later, he was cleaning out his attic and he found the bound manuscript containing the young man’s work.

The autobiography, titled A Mid Summers Nightmare, charts the life of the man from his birth on June 7, 1964, through to the time leading up to his death including his thoughts about death and the afterlife.

Mr Balsom, 78, said: “All these memories came flooding back about this gentleman, who was seriously ill, that I briefly met.

“Sadly too much time had passed since we met and I couldn’t recall his name. But he pleaded with me to read it and tell him what I thought.

“I’m certain the young man’s family would want the book, seeing as he clearly spent a lot of time writing it. He was seriously ill and had a daughter and I think he wanted to take her on holiday. I do remember he seemed such a nice fellow.”

The book describes his early childhood spent living above a fish and chip shop in Stafford Road, Wallington, and his time at Bandon Hill Infants School in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There are numerous clues about the mystery author’s identity in the book but he does not refer to himself by name, only that he had a brother called Martin and married a woman called Diane.

The man worked at Dawnier Motors in Cheam Village in 1979 and was an avid motorbike enthusiast. He was involved in an horrific accident on his bike in 1985 and spent a long time recovering in Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon.

He was also a budding artist and had almost completed his first painting also titled A Mid Summers Nightmare – a reference to the bike accident which nearly cost him his life.

Mr Balsom cannot remember when he died but it seems to have been about 2001 to 2002.