Books by Philip Algar

This is the remarkable story of an independent's first campaign to win the Parliamentary seat of Devon East in the 2015 General Election. Lacking a party label, an experienced party machine and relying on private donations and friends to fight one of the country's safest Tory seats, Claire Wright won the highest number of votes, 13,140, of any independent in the UK. Usually, independents fail to win more than a few hundred votes. This book offers a rare insight into what is necessary to challenge the big parties. Written by a member of the core team, it reveals the problems and successes of the campaign. It explains how the independent, backed by hundreds of supporters, beat three of the four national parties. The drama is put into the context of the national political scene and discusses the immediate aftermath of the general election. The book will appeal to all those interested in grass roots politics and will be a revelation to the inhabitants of East Devon on the mechanisms behind their own election.

Tim, a little boy, growing up in Devon during the war, whose father is in a POW camp in Germany, has no experience of peace. He witnesses wartime damage, spends nights in a Morrison shelter, watches a bomb drop near his home and sees allied troops massing before the invasion. After the war, will his father's own experiences prevent him from developing a positive relationship with his young son? Will the war claim another emotional casualty? This meticulously-researched novel is fascinating, emotional and humorous. The story begins in 1926, when the parents first meet, just after the General Strike. The book contains a graphic account of events in 1936, when Tim was born, and paints a vivid picture of life during the next two decades and the social, economic and political context in which adults and children lived from one day to the next. This book, set in Torquay and then in London, will appeal to all those interested in day to day life in the Forties and early Fifties.