Adam Brunskill

by Thomas Armstrong, Linda Bray (Editor), Marion Bray (Editor)

Adam, a young man brought up in a colony of northcountrymen among the lead mines of Spain, comes home on his father's death to the little town of Winterings, among the dales of the North Riding. The fells about the town are a warren of small lead mines, and Winterings is still a mining community, though the prosperity of the mid-19th century has passed. Two concerns work the area, and it is round the rivalry of the East Side and West Side companies that the story is built. On the one hand are the Nattrasses, cousins to Adam through his mother, but long-standing enemies of the Brunskills; on the other Titus Alderson, uncle of Cherry Dinsdale, a local girl to whose goodness and charms Adam soon succumbs. When Adam begins to suspect who has plotted Titus' disgrace, the stage is set; sides are taken in the little community and tongues wag; subterfuge and counter-plot get to work.

560 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1952

About the author

Born in 1899 in Leeds to parents from mill-owning families, Thomas Armstrong attended Queen Elizabeth School, Wakefield; then studied at the Royal Naval College, Keyham, followed by service in the Royal Navy during the First World War. Finding the spit and polish of peace-time Navy life irksome, he entered the wool trade but was soon off on a roving tour of the world that lasted several years. He married in 1930 and then began writing novels, achieving success with the immediately popular The Crowthers of Bankdam, first published in 1940, which at once established him as one of Britain's leading contemporary novelists. He lived in Yorkshire, initially in the West Riding and then in Swaledale for 30 years. Throughout his life he avoided personal publicity.

Thomas Armstrong died in 1978.