In the early-1930s a couple run away to a lonely cove in Cornwall and make their home in an old army hut. It is the time of the Great Depression; they need furniture, food, any means of raising cash they can think of whilst he, a struggling author, is determined to write a novel about the inshore fishermen of Robin Hood's Bay—a novel that will solve the couple’s financial problems. This is their story told with ". . . a simplicity and a charm equal to Thomas Hardy" (Book Society, 1939). When first published Love in the Sun was destined to be a bestseller on a massive scale. Alexander Korda wanted the film rights, and actor Leslie Howard (Gone With the Wind) was considered for the lead role. But any hopes of Leo Walmsley attaining international acclaim were dashed by the outbreak of World War II. "We are not worthy to be called writers if we cannot do what . . . [Leo Walmsley] has done in Love in the Sun . . ." Daphne du Maurier
Author
Leo Walmsley was an English writer. He was born in Shipley in West Yorkshire in 1892, and two years later his family moved to Robin Hood's Bay on the coast of present-day North Yorkshire, where he was schooled at the old Wesleyan chapel & the Scarborough Municipal School. He was the son of the painter Ulric Walmsley. In 1912 the young Leo secured the post of curator-caretaker of the Robin Hood's Bay Marine Laboratory at five shillings a week. During World War I he served as an observer with the Royal Flying Corps in East Africa, was mentioned in dispatches four times and was awarded the Military Cross. After a plane crash he was sent home, and eventually pursued a literary career. He settled at Pont Pill near Polruan in Cornwall, where he became friendly with the writer Daphne du Maurier. Many of his books are mainly autobiographical, the best known being his Bramblewick series set in Robin Hood's Bay – Foreigners, Three Fevers, Phantom Lobster and Sally Lunn, the second of which was filmed as Turn of the Tide (1935).
