POW's story brought to life by Barnstaple Inner Wheel member

Last week members of the Inner Wheel Clubs of Torquay and Dartmouth were treated to an on-line talk by Barnstaple’s Gay Ross about her book entitled Luigi. 

Gay wrote the book between 2018 and 2019 and it was published last July during the Covid restrictions. It is based on the true story of her father’s experiences in Italy during World War II as an escaped Prisoner of War and a more recent decision to visit the places he had been. 

An Inner Wheel spokesperson said: “It was an intriguing and most interesting tale as Gay described how they unexpectedly found a family who remembered him and the emotional reunion that followed.” 

Gay used her maiden name Gabrielle Ayers as her nom de plume for the book in honour of her father. 

Gay is Past President of The Inner Wheel Club of Barnstaple and is currently Vice District Chairman for Devon. She is generously donating her fee to the ‘End Polio Now’ charity because her father died from Polio when she was just six years old. 

Gay said: “All that has happened recently is all the more poignant because he died so young.”