The extraordinary Second World War tale of the father of a retired Kendal doctor has been told in a recently published semi-fictional novel.

Tony Lindsell wrote Wolf, released in December, based on recordings of interviews by the Imperial War Museum with Wolf Albert, father of Daniel Albert, who has lived in Kendal for 6 years.

Tony, a former journalist, explains how he came across the story of Wolf Albert, and why it was written in a semi-fictional style:

"I was on a skiing holiday in Austria in 2018, and one of the other people in the group was Daniel Albert.

"The subject at dinner turned to writing and Daniel told me I should write the story of his father.

"After the holiday he sent me his father's transcripts - they more mostly good, but there were lots of gaps in the story."

Wolf's experiences chronicle his flight east from Poland along with other members of the Jewish community from the invading German forces, how he ended up in a Siberian labour-camp, and his epic journey back across the continent.

Tony said: "Wolf is a real person and the basic story is real, but I had to do a lot of research to fill in the gaps, which is why much of the story is fiction.

"I have done my best to make it as plausible as possible based on other accounts, and what was going on in the wider world at the time.

"There was one particular real character in the book whose own story converged perfectly with Wolf's real story at the end, so that was a huge bonus, rubber-stamping both stories."

Daniel Albert shared his feelings on the publication:

"A lot of my thoughts were around 'What would my late father have thought about it?'".

"He was always saying it would have been great if we could write a book about what he'd been through, so he'd be delighted that there now is, but I think he would have found the fiction part of it hard.

"He was always a very literal person. He never told me about things he did to someone else, apart from one story where he poured soup over someone's head!

"In the end, the story is better told than not told - Tony has done a good job at researching around it and making it plausible, rather than just imagined - I really like the result, though its painted a picture in my mind that's very different to what I had as a kid."

Wolf is available in paperback and e-book.