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The Rich And The Poor
by Peter Whittle
The Rich and the Poor is the story of two young Italians, Luciano a Wealthy, Sandro ambitious who lives are linked by a love of speed and fas living in pre-war Italy. Their friendship only broken when Italy goes to war. One becomes a War Hero, the other a partisan fighting fascism. Around them are others caught up in the huge upheaval of war, including Sandro’s ambitious sister Stefania, who uses her sexual allure to achieve stardom in movies, Luciano’s father, the millionaire industrial friend of Benito Mussolini, the Father Giovanni, the parish priest who finally reveals the dark secret which binds Luciano and Sandro together until the end.
About the Author
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Peter Whittle’s clearest boyhood memories are of the battle of Britain being fought overhead, of being machine gunned by a german raider, of waking one night to find the house collapsing after a bomb dropped in the gardener and later of meeting his very first American citizen - a GI who watched incredulously as he young Whittle gratefully accepted the rare delicacy of a can of peaches and quickly ate the lot.
A Native of London, Peter Whittle was evacuated to South-East England when war broke out in 1939. Upon returning to his home city near the end of the war, he took a job in a bank and, soon after, joined the Royal Navy for two years of conscript service. When he was demobilised he found the prospect of banking “unpalatable,” so he, (in his own words) ‘Bummed out working as a coach driver’s mate credit investigator and, briefly, in an Irish shirt factory-along with 600 girls.”
At 22 Whittle decided to become a journalist. his first job in the trade was as a photographer with a TV magazine and later as a feature writer, layout man, rewriter, etc. . Leaving the Magazine to work on various provincial weeklies, dailies and wire services, finally arriving on Fleet street as a national reporter in 1957. In 1961, he gave up his job with the London Daily Mail to devote his time to free lancing articles that have been featured in magazines and newspapers throughout the world. He then went on to become a news editor at Visnews, a London-based international news agency.
Peter Whittle began writing books in 1964.
Among them was :
‘White House Nanny, written in association with Maud Shaw, who was for seven years nanny to the John F. Kennedy children. An intensely human story, she tells of her days with the Kennedy’s from 1957 and opens with the tragic day in November 1963 when President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas.
He also went on to write One Afternoon at Mezzegra, a book commissioned to piece together history the book focuses on the death of Benito Mussolini and on the events of the four days proceeding it. Whittle then went on to write The Rich and The Poor a novel that was inspired from his historic research and travels in Italy researching history from the Second World War.