Tony Whelpton

The Billy Frecknall Story Tony Whelpton

This is an omnibus edition, containing one novella and two novels, all of which have already been published. The novella is Billy: The Early Years, which is a prequel to the second book included in this edition, Billy's War, to which the the third title in the collection, There's No Pride in Prejudice, is itself a sequel.

It is the story of Billy Frecknall, who is a little boy living in Nottingham, whom we meet in the first book along with his parents in the late 1930s, just before the Second World War broke out. Billy is an intelligent, resourceful, caring little boy, and we are able to see from the early years of his upbringing where his qualities came from: his parents. The first book in the collection takes us up to early 1941, shortly before Billy's War takes up the story.

Billy's War starts with an air raid on Nottingham which really happened, and which the author remembers vividly, because he too was living in Nottingham at the time. Billy's mother is killed in the air raid, and, one he comes out of hospital himself, Billy goes to live with his aunt, his father being in the army. Billy is not happy living with his aunt, and he runs away to London, with the object of finding out from the War Office where his father is. The rest of Billy's War is taken up with Billy's adventures.

In There's No Pride in Prejudice Billy is now an adult, training to be an opera singer. As we see him ascend the stairway to stardom, we see him in various relationships, notably one with a Jewish girl in Paris and one with a black girl in New York, and he experiences both anti-semitism and racial discrimination; this makes such an impression on him that he devotes his life to fighting prejudice of all kinds.