“High Time, published by Tony Whelpton in 2018, is a gripping read that really made my heart ache...”
Eight year old Ruth Reid has a major preoccupation in her life, summed up by the question she keeps asking her mother, and which her mother never answers: 'Why don't I have a grandma or grandad? All my friends at school do!'
Why doesn't Ruth's mother answer? Partly because she thinks Ruth is too young to be told, partly because she is afraid that the answer will reopen old wounds in her own heart.
Ruth's mother, Susan, is a white working-class girl from Nottingham, who ran away to London with her boyfriend Courtney, a black immigrant from Jamaica, after constant rows with her parents, and after Courtney was assaulted in what the national newspapers termed the Nottingham Race Riots in 1958.
Author Tony Whelpton portrays with impressive realism this story from his own home town, and describes not only the highs and lows of the story of Ruth's parents, but also those experienced by her grandparents, who don't even know of her existence. There is heartache a-plenty on all sides, but a great deal of happiness too, as readers of octogenarian novelist Tony Whelpton's works have come to expect.
High Time is a full-length novel which is a re-working of a novella named A Happy Christmas, published in 2016 but withdrawn from sale when High Time was published. High Time is well over twice the length of A Happy Christmas.

Tony Whelpton published A Change of Mind in 2017, and it was launched at the 2017 Cheltenham Literature Festival, where Tony introduced it to a large audience.
A Change of Mind is the story of the struggle of Maurice Summerfield, an elderly Englishman, against a serious speech defect which only begins to afflict him once he reaches his eighties and for which there appears to be no physical or neurological cause. Maurice’s problems are especially distressing for him because of his earlier career, which embraced both academia, politics and broadcasting.
At the beginning of the novel Maurice appears to be in a very curious mental state, in which he is convinced that he is going backwards in his life, whereas everyone else appears to be going forward; in other words he is getting younger whilst everybody else is growing older. His wife Elaine, much distressed by what has befallen her husband, conspires with their daughter and a number of Maurice’s friends in establishing a plan to build up his confidence anew, having become convinced that, in the absence of physical or neurological causes, a crisis of confidence must be the only remaining reason for his having been reduced – at times, at any rate – to being a gibbering wreck. A series of fascinating episodes ensue, each of which involves Maurice being reunited with someone from his past, but it is almost by accident that Elaine stumbles across what appears to be the key to his problems: his relationship with his younger brother, who has spent most of his life as a drunken, violent criminal, with whom she engineers a reconciliation which enables her husband to find peace of mind at last.
The octogenarian author Tony Whelpton had a very good reason to write this story, because he has been through a very similar set of experiences to Maurice Summerfield and has spent a number of years attempting to answer the same questions as his protagonist. And did he find adequate answers? Not entirely, because there appears to be nobody who is really capable of finding the answers. But Tony has managed to construct an enthralling and engaging story out of his struggle.

“Billy's War (2014) had me hooked instantly, and young Billy stole my heart...”
What can being at war mean to a nine-year-old? Not much, you might think, but if the boy in question is a war orphan...
The date was Thursday 8 May 1941. Britain had been at war with Nazi Germany for 19 months. Billy Frecknall was only nine years old, but what a character he turned out to be! Like many boys of his age, Billy to all intents and purposes no longer had a Dad, because his father had enlisted in the army in the early days of the war, and Billy and his Mum didn’t even know where he was. But that night saw the biggest air raid Billy’s home town of Nottingham had experienced - an air raid which the author experienced personally and recalls vividly - and there were many casualties, including Billy’s Mum. Billy was fortunate to survive, but life as an orphan, especially an orphan being brought up in an apparently hostile family, left a lot to be desired.
What could a little boy in that situation do? Grin and bear it? That would be the only option for many. But what if the little boy in question is resilient, resourceful, intelligent and, above all, driven? Driven by a desire which becomes an obsession, and aided by the innocence of a child of his time, which meant that he trusted everyone until he had reason to think otherwise, he sets off to find his Dad.
In the course of his quest he faces up to many obstacles that would have caused a less resourceful boy to blanch and give up, but he doesn't - and he is blessed also with a charisma that makes most people he encounters take his side without hesitation.
If you read his story, you'll quickly see why Billy captures so many hearts and, with all the odds apparently stacked against him, wins his war.
The sequel to Billy's War, called There's No Pride In Prejudice, was published in 2016.

Tony Whelpton’s There’s No Pride in Prejudice (2016) is the sequel to his extremely popular Billy’s War.
You will remember that the hero of the earlier novel was at once cheerful, courageous and charismatic, and Billy displays all those qualities as an adult.
In the later novel we first encounter him briefly as he is being interviewed with a view to becoming an officer in the British Army: he fails the interview because he admits to having been convicted of assault in Paris. In a flashback to the event we learn the background to the incident, Billy’s unwillingness to stand idly by when his French girlfriend is vilified because she is Jewish.
A few years later he is just as ready to demonstrate his rejection of prejudicial stereotypes when he objects to being prevented from sitting with his black American girlfriend on a Greyhound bus. In fact throughout his life he will continue to fight prejudice wherever he finds it, whether it be antisemitism, colour prejudice, anti-gay prejudice or just plain sexism.
Ultimately he becomes an opera singer – and not just a member of the chorus but an international star, which provides him with not only sufficient stature to ensure that his anti-prejudice campaign will be heard but also plenty of opportunity to voice his concerns, because he finds that there is just as much discrimination in the world of opera as in any other field of human activity.
But Billy being Billy, he is universally popular – except among those with whom he is at war – and, as readers of Tony Whelpton’s novels have come to expect, despite the extremely dark moments, Billy’s story is a tale of happiness and success.

Before the Swallow Dares is Tony Whelpton’s first novel, published in 2012 when he was 79.

What do you think your feelings would be if you met an old school friend forty years later – and discovered that he’s married to the girl you considered to be the love of your life when you were 18? And especially when you met her again and found her just as captivating as she used to be!
So here you are with three women in your life: for, apart from your current wife, to whom you’ve been happily married for over 20 years, there is still your first wife, a vivacious and scheming Frenchwoman whose main objective in life appears to be to cause as much mayhem as possible!
Love, friendship, lust, jealousy, guilt: the ingredients for an intriguing and potentially dangerous mix when the players in the drama are in the first flush of youth. But is it likely to be any different when they’re older?

The Heat of the Kitchen is Tony Whelpton’s second novel, and was published in 2013.
Politics are a turn-off, right?
Not in France they're not! And the author of this page-turner draws on more than sixty years' experience of French life and culture to enable him to fascinate and thrill you! You will be enthralled by the Macchiavellian cunning of these small-town politicians!
Come with me to the French Riviera, where passions run high and the intense heat can easily transform something as mundane as a traffic jam into a murder scene! Traffic jams happen every day in the pretty little tourist trap of St. Pierre-sur-Loup, and Alain Simondi, the Mayor, is determined to find an answer.
But the solution Simondi proposes is not greeted with much enthusiasm by Cécile Delpech, the leader of the opposition, a lively and attractive single mother with whom he has been carrying on an affair for some considerable time. Enter Hélène Gautier, a young, pretty and feisty reporter on the local newspaper, who is not unwilling to make use of her charms to get what she wants. But what does she want? And to what lengths will she go? Hélène is intelligent and cunning, but will her wiles prove a match for the Mayor’s experience?
A solution is ultimately found to the little town’s traffic problems, but at the end of the story St. Pierre-sur-Loup will have been turned upside down in more ways than one! In the battle for power in Saint-Pierre-sur-Loup there are winners and losers... But the real winner is undoubtedly the town itself, for the solution to its problems involves an ingenious combination of ecologically-friendly measures which have all been used in real-life contemporary France, but only in Saint-Pierre-sur-Loup will you find them implemented in such a uniquely integrated and popular way!

This is a newly-revised version of a book first published in paperback in 1998, which was very popular but went out of print in 2008, and Tony decided to publish a new edition in 2012
How’s That! is a book which explains the game of cricket in a way that isn't over-complicated, takes nothing for granted, doesn't over-simplify unduly and - which is very important - doesn't treat its subject in such a facetious manner as to defeat the whole object.
It doesn't pretend cricket isn't a complex game, but it does make sure that you pick up all the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle in the proper order so that everything makes sense right from the start, with every new piece added clearly helping to build a bigger picture and helping you to enjoy the game even more.
It is enhanced by lively and charming cartoons drawn by Tim Parker.

I didn't call the police. Your family did. It is the dead of night when David's bedside telephone rings, brutally rousing him from sleep. Bewildered, he answers, only to be left shocked by the message passed on to him by the caller. But was the call meant for him and is the caller really who they seem?