Lenny Harvey
AUTHOR

Lenny Harvey

Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Lenny Harvey is an eighty-three-year-old British author whose writing draws heavily on a lifetime of varied and often challenging experiences, his Romany heritage, extensive travels, and working-class upbringing.

Born in Edmonton, London, in 1943, he came into the world during the hardships of wartime Britain and was raised within a Romany Gypsy family. His father was serving overseas with the British Army, leaving his mother to bring him up in difficult circumstances. Much of his childhood was spent moving from place to place, and remarkably, he did not meet his father until he was in his fifties.

Growing up among Romany communities in North London, Lenny’s early life involved travelling and seasonal work, including hop picking, flower selling, and working in the scrap metal trade. The people, customs and hardships he encountered during those formative years would later provide much of the realism and authenticity found in his writing.

At fourteen, with the help of his mother in disguising his true age, he secured work as a cabin boy with Everards, a shipping company operating on the Thames. He served aboard several vessels, although his employment repeatedly came to an end when his real age was discovered. At sixteen, he joined the Merchant Navy training ship Vindicatrix and later returned to sea, working as both a cabin boy and seaman.

By seventeen, Lenny had returned to land-based work in the scrap trade. Over the decades that followed, he built an unusually varied career that took him across Britain and overseas. His occupations ranged from dock work and scrap dealing to nightclub promotion and security work in London during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He later became involved in property development in both the United Kingdom and Tenerife, worked as a firearms instructor, and undertook contract work associated with the Ministry of Defence.

His experience in security, international business and overseas contract work eventually led to advisory roles in Ukraine and Crimea following the collapse of the Soviet Union. These experiences gave him first-hand insight into political instability, conflict, loyalty and human behaviour — subjects that continue to influence his fiction.

Lenny’s life has included periods of considerable financial success as well as serious personal and financial setbacks. Those contrasting experiences, together with the extraordinary range of people he has met and places he has visited, have provided inspiration for many of the characters, situations and settings found in his books.

His published works include Romany Gypsies, Forbidden Love, The Devil’s Gypsies, and the historical fiction series Outcasts of Empire, set against the backdrop of the Second Boer War and Edwardian Britain.

His writing is particularly noted for its portrayal of Romany and working-class life and for drawing upon personal experience rather than romanticised versions of the past.

Robert Dawson, President of the Romany and Traveller Family History Society, praised Lenny Harvey’s non-fiction work Romany Gypsies for its realism and accuracy, describing it as “so spot on, so accurate, so as it was,” and later as “a book which tells it as it was. Honestly, warts and all.”

Lenny’s most recent work, Outcasts of Empire, follows two Romany brothers who are forced to leave England, join the Connaught Rangers, and become embroiled in the Second Boer War. Their journey eventually carries them far beyond the battlefield and into a dangerous world of loyalty, violence, espionage and service to the British Empire.

The series combines Lenny’s long-standing interest in military history with his knowledge of Romany culture and the social conditions of the period.

Lenny Harvey lives in England with his wife, Lynne. They have been married for more than sixty-two years and have one son, one daughter, and seven grandchildren.
Read more Read less

Try Audible membership today. Start enjoying the benefits.

Try Audible for free with an audiobook of your choice.
Try Standard free
Auto-renews at AUD $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Most Popular

Product list
  • Romany Gypsies cover art
    Preview

    $17.84 or free with 30-day trial

    Try Standard free
  • The Devils Gypsies: Tales of Devil Worship, Demons, Witches and Gypsies cover art
    Preview

    $15.12 or free with 30-day trial

    Try Standard free