When he was sixteen years old, Egbert Eames (1892-1971) discovered a passion for politics based on his desire to help the underpaid and underprivileged working people of his age. He joined the Liberal Party and mixed with the Liberal elite in their grand houses in London. He became a socialist, and finally a communist.

He fell passionately in love with a vivacious and striking young woman and gave her a diamond engagement ring in 1923. Thirty-three years later they married.

ISBN 978-1-926635-12-5
Trade paperback 284 pages

He was a communist agitator who had tremendous faith in Stalin, Soviet Russia and Mao Tse Tung. The Spanish Civil War, Fascism, the struggles of China against Japan, and the fate of the Jews under Nazi rule were his concern in the 1930s. Discovering that many of his German friends were Jews, he helped over two hundred Jewish children to escape Hitler's death camps and find safety in England.

But although his compassion for the poor was deep and sincere, his desire for the soft life – women, good food, amusement – sometimes diverted him from his purpose, so he was pulled first one way and then another by conflicting passions.

He was a happy man who enjoyed life to the full, in spite of poverty, prison, shame, and family disapproval.

This is a story of a family, a study of character, and a love story, through times of political and social upheaval.