The debut novel from the author of There Was a Time, originally published in 1964.
The 'deeply moving' novella (Manchester Evening News), from the author of There Was a Time.
Frank White's powerful first novel was originally published in 1964. Against a strongly evoked backdrop of Manchester at the time of the Second World War, it is a compelling story of a family torn apart. It makes a fascinating companion piece to the author's new novel - written more than fifty years later! - about a Lincolnshire village living in the shadow of the war, There Was A Time.
Freddy is thirteen years old in 1939, when the close comfort of his family life is breached by his father being called up to the Army. His mother is emotionally unable to cope with the separation, and becomes withdrawn and depressed. When Freddy's beloved morse code set, which his father built, is broken, it is almost as if all lines of communication have failed. Then the father of one of Freddy's friends offers to repair the morse code set.
Has the boy brought healing or tragedy into the family home?
A Morse Code Set is a short, intense novel by a writer with an acute eye and ear for family relationships and a superb sense of storytelling.
There Was a Time vividly evokes life in a Lincolnshire village in 1940. Elegantly written and with beautifully-drawn characters, this absorbing story, amusing and poignant by turns, tells of the impact of the last War on a small, close-knit community. - Gervase Phinn on There Was a Time
Frank White was born in August 1927. He was brought up in Newton Heath, Manchester. He served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War. He had two novels published in the 1960s (including A Morse Code Set, published in this volume) and wrote plays for stage and radio, as well as a short book on the First World War. More than fifty years after his first book was published, he wrote There Was A Time, published to critical acclaim in 2017. Frank lived at Marshchapel, Lincolnshire, with his wife June. Frank died in December 2019.