Jan Fraser Coles has a dream a dream to help others realise that it's never too late to live they life they have imagined.

Inspired by the saying: "You are never too old to follow your dreams," she has written a book for women called 'You're Never Too Old To: Dream Dare Dance'.

And the author should know: she became an airline steward in her 40s, jumped from an airplane in her 50s and wed husband Ian in a romantic beach ceremony just last year.

Mrs. Fraser Coles said she has faced many personal and professional challenges in life and her aim was to share a simple message of hope with other women.

The book, which took five years to write, came from her mother's experiences of surviving breast cancer. At the time there were few support groups and the surgery involved was much more invasive than now.

"In those days you went in for a little tiny speck of cancer and it [treatment] was radical," she said.

"It was pretty devastating. Then she lost her second breast, so it was really, really depressing for her and she was never a depressing kind of woman, but I think it put her dreams on hold, because she said: 'Nothing new is possible'.

"So I think 'Dream Dare Dance' came out of that and a need to help women dust off their dreams, renew them, revisit them, recreate them and create that greater joy of love and success in their lives that they want."

Mrs. Fraser Coles believes women put their dreams on hold when they get depressed and their minds fill with negative thoughts such as: "Oh I can't do that, I'm either too old or too young, or too big or too small."

She said: "At that moment, when they decide to put the dream away, there isn't someone right there to say: 'Stop it right now girl, you can do anything you put your mind to'."

She hopes her book will fill that gap and sought out other inspirational women to provide stories for the book.

"I gathered together with four other women, who are loving and talented and are either coaches, artists, editors or in the transformational fields," she said.

"It is full of motivational sayings, of poems, of lyrics, but also short stories from other women, who are real women on real time with real experiences.

"They have either dreamed their dream and dared to achieve it or perhaps are pushing through a difficult time and managed to dance."

She added: "I think the book came out of a need, especially for women aged over 40. My next book will be for women under 40, because a lot of women have said: 'You've got to write a book for us'."

Mrs. Fraser Coles really believes in going for her dreams. "I became a flight attendant at the age of 43 for American Airlines; I jumped out of planes in my 50s," she said.

"It is not that I have climbed mountains in my life, but I have done things that were for me scary, but I did them anyway."

She also participates in breast cancer walks as a way to raise awareness of a disease that affects one in eight women.

While working for American Airlines, she went through a training exercise which involved her and a partner climbing to the top of a 40ft pole and then jumping off a disk the size of a pizza.

She was afraid to do it, although she was supported by belayers holding the ropes.

"I think that's what we need in our lives belayers, people that hold the guide ropes and don't let you fall," she said. "They can say to you that: 'I have been down that road, I know what it will take, just follow my lead. It is taking a risk, that is how the book started'."

Mrs. Fraser Coles came to the Island in 2005, as a speaker with the International Association of Administrative Professionals. She returned to speak for the same organisation in 2007.

Watching a wedding on the Fairmont Southampton's beach, she wrote in her journal that if she ever married again it would be on a beach in Bermuda.

After meeting future spouse Ian Coles at a conference in the US, they did just that, tying the knot at Mid Ocean last July.

"I am living a dream, so it has been very easy for me in the last year to put this book together and this is just the beginning, there will be more Dream Dare Dance books," she pledged.

'You're Never Too Old To: Dream Dare Dance' — her third book — will be launched on Saturday at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute during a Women's Conference in aid of PALS cancer charity.

• Tickets for the conference are $59 for the full day, including lunch. Tickets can be purchased at PALS, 18 Point Finger Road or online at www.bdatix.bm.