When you get given a story like the one Graham Donnelly’s mother gave him, of course you write a book based on it.

And it’s a real cracker, based on real life events, about an Italian cafe owner who was a neighbour of the West Mersea author’s parents in the East End of London.

Graham says: “His cafe was a few doors down from my parents’ newsagent and the story goes that just before the outbreak of the Second World War his Italian aunt sent over a chest full of her valuables because she was worried what might happen in Italy during the war.

“Unfortunately when war broke out, the Italian cafe owner got interned, but before he got taken away he told his English wife to make sure she looked after the chest. Because of the Blitz, she entrusted the chest to a neighbour for safekeeping.

“When the cafe owner returned, the first thing he asked was where his aunty’s chest was, but when they round to the neighbour, he swore blind he knew nothing about any chest and they never saw it again.”

Born and brought up in Homerton, London, Graham took a degree in Economics at UCL before going to work at the Home Office. He then worked in the international banking sector for a while before going into teaching, eventually ending up at the Colchester Institute, Suffolk college and then finally head of Business Studies at Braintree College.

Although he’s written several academic books about economics, this is his first attempt at fiction.

“I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” he smiles, “and this story my mum, who is now 97, told me many years ago has always been in my head, I just didn’t know how I was going to get it into a book.”

Well now he has.

In Mussolini’s Chest, Luca Morenelli is the Italian café owner who is interned by the British but then sent to Canada. However, Luca has different ideas and escapes, planning to hide in Ireland until the war is over.

He soon discovers the liberation of starting a new life with a return to his old career as a waiter in a prestigious restaurant, a new woman with no strings attached and undercover work for the Italian secret service. Becoming a new man, Luca wills himself to forget his past, foregoing his chances to return to England or Italy.

When the end of the war inevitably arrives, all is going well for Luca, yet he feels impelled to return home to sort out his affairs; his marriage, his business and, perhaps most importantly, the large chest of valuables he promised to store for his wealthy aunt for the duration of the war, referred to as ‘Mussolini’s Chest’.

“I set myself a resolution in 2017 to finish the book and by the end of the year I had,” Graham adds. “I enjoyed it so much I’ve already started the second one about a man who works in the Home Office during the early Sixties with events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Profumo Affair providing the backdrop to his life.”

l Mussolini’s Chest is out on January 28, available in all good bookshops.