Harry was born in 1931 in a back street off the Tower Bridge Road. He left school at the age of 14. Only when his own children began to ask questions about the war, did Harry realise how many stories he had to tell. In his fifties, he was given early retirement from his job as a brewery driver-drayman, and was at last able to devote his time to writing. He became known as 'the King of Cockney sagas', who wrote eighteen bestselling novels of London life. Sadly Harry died in 1999 and the Harry Bowling Prize was set up in 2000 in his memory.