Books by Andrew Davies

Rose is an English elementary school teacher who is dissatisfied with her life, both at home and at work. At the school, she must contend with silly narrow-mindedness and at home, she must contend with a husband who appears bored both with marriage and with her. Eventually, Rose has a fling with a free-spirited fellow teacher and decides to divorce her husband. In a highly charged scene of great emotional depth, he forces her to confront the consequences of her ennui; and to wonder if, just maybe, some of her disenchantment with life is her own fault.5 women, 3 men

Mr and Mrs Hudd are celebrating their wedding anniversary at Elaine and Bob's house. Friends and family are invited along to share the caviar and to toast this odd-ball couple with champagne. However a creaking floorboard, a leaking pipe and the odd behaviour of the party members makes the day most memorable - for all the wrong reasons.-3 women, 3 men

The egocentric and eccentric heroine of this play by the author of Rose is principal of a teachers' college in England. She fights with every fiber of her being against mediocrity in public education and in the world in general. Her world is falling apart: the Directors plan to merge the school with the local Polytechnic, giving her a faculty chair but no authority. Prin is also on shaky grounds with her lover, a shy, quiet woman who wants to marry the science teacher. While Prin lords it over one and all, one and all are making plans to be free from her. Prin emerges as a character whose noble ideals are doomed by her arrogant insensitivity.|3 women, 3 men

**Includes fascinating stories about Billy Fullerton, leader of the Billy Boys, featured in the latest series of BBC's Peaky Blinders**'A new type of criminal is in our midst - a dangerous, ruthless, well-armed man, who will stick at nothing, not even murder. He is introducing into this country the gangster methods of Chicago and New York... Trade depression has thrown into unemployment thousands of unskilled youths who have nothing to do but lounge about the street corners of our slums in gangs.' John Bull weekly newspaper, 1932.During the 1920s and 1930s, Glasgow gained an unenviable and enduring notoriety as Britain's gang city - the 'Scottish Chicago'. Now Andrew Davies, author of the acclaimed The Gangs of Manchester, brings to life the reign of terror exerted on Glasgow by gangs like the Billy Boys, the Kent Star, the Savoy Arcadians and the South Side Stickers. Out of the most dilapidated and overcrowded tenements in Britain, stepped young men and women dressed like Hollywood gangsters and their molls. On the city's streets, they took centre stage in dramas of their own making, fighting territorial battles laced with religious sectarianism and running protection rackets modelled on those of the American underworld.Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Andrew Davies provides compelling portraits of legendary figures such as 'Razor King' John Ross and Billy Fullerton, leader of the Billy Boys - described as the 'Al Capone' of the city's East End. He sheds new light on the way the city's police and judiciary dealt with the gangs and reveals the fascinating role played by the media in creating myths of the underworld. During what the Daily Express described as 'The War on the Gang', Glasgow's police were led by Chief Constable Percy Sillitoe (who later became head of M15), determined to maintain the image as a tough, gang-busting cop he had forged in Sheffield during the 1920s. This dramatic story, played out against the backdrop of the most volatile of Britain's cities, provides a new window onto the most turbulent period in modern British history and a timely reminder of how deprivation, unemployment and religious bigotry are a toxic cocktail in any era.

Take a nostalgic trip back to a time when children played on the street, the local bobby could clip your ear and anywhere beyond Bridlington was an exotic holiday.

'Coming a little nearer to Scannell's own situation, au pairs have a long, well established and respectable tradition as persons into whom it is OK, even de rigeur, to dip the seigneurial wick.

In his own words, Charlie Cross is a bloke in love. When he meets Viola in an after-hours drinking club, he knows instinctively that they could do each other harm. What follows is one man's record of a love affair, an erotic, savagely funny and heartfelt tale of destructive sexual passion.

They emerged from the harrowing slums of one of the world''s great cities, malnourished youths clad in bizarre fashions. The scuttlers were the `hoodies'' of their day, and for thirty years they held the streets of Manchester and Salford in a grip of fear. Gangs of Manchester traces the history of the scuttlers from the Rochdale Road War of 1870-1, through the antics of such infamous fighters as the Bellis brothers of Salford and John Hillier, the King of the Scuttlers, until the demise of the gangs at the turn of the century.