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Date added: 25.1.2015
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Yorkshire novelist & author Thomas Armstrong’s family were West Riding mill owners, and he was born in Leeds on September 3rd 1899, the son of Charles Plaxton and Alice Armstrong. He was educated at the Queen Elizabeth School, Wakefield and at the Royal Naval College at Keyham. During the Great War he served in the Navy, and was in Russia at the time of the Revolution.After he returned home in 1919 he spent some years in the wool trade, travelling extensively on behalf of the family firm. He married Una Dulcie Bray (of Huddersfield) in 1930, and after a decade or so in the West Riding they eventually settled in the Yorkshire Dales at Lawn House, Low Row, Swaledale, which was his home for 30 years.It was around the time that he married that he began to attempt writing some fiction, but it was not until late 1940 that he enjoyed his first major success with the publication of ‘The Crowthers of Bankdam’, a 250,000-word saga of a textile family which became an instant best-seller, so popular that it went into several editions in no time at all, and was made into a film.His other novels included ‘Pilling Always Pays’ (1954) and ‘Sue Crowther’s Marriage’ (1961) --both part of the Crowther Chronicles- ‘Dover Harbour’ (1942)- ‘King Cotton’ (1947)- ‘Adam Brunskill’ (1952)- ‘A Ring Has No End’ (1958)- ‘The Face of the Madonna’ (1964) and, finally, ‘Our London Office’ (1966).His great strength was not so much his abilities as a novelist as his talents as a historian who could tell a good tale.Armstrong wrote everything in longhand, and used to say that only his wife would read his handwriting.He was a courteous, friendly man, but was rather shy not keen on personal publicity, and made every effort to avoid interviews.He died in early August 1978. A Ring Has No End by Thomas Armstrong (novelist)
