Robert Westerby was an author of novels (published by Arthur Barker of London) and screenwriter for films and television.

Westerby's 1937 novel Wide Boys Never Work was a story of the criminal underworld before the Second World War and was made into a 1956 film Soho Incident (UK title) or Spin a Dark Web (US title), and was the earliest published use of the word "wide boy

Wide boy

Wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is synonymous with spiv. The word 'wide' is in this sense means wide-awake or sharp-witted...

". His account of his early life was entitled A Magnum for my Mother (1946). To the British public, a magnum just meant a large bottle of champagne. However, in the USA it could suggest a type of handgun, so it was retitled Champagne for Mother (1947).
In 2008 London Books republished Wide Boys Never Work as part of their London Books classics series.

Books

• Wide Boys Never Work (1937)
• Only Pain is Real (1937)
• In These Quiet Streets (1938)
• French for Funny, and Other Stories (1938)
• Polish Gold (1940)
• The Small Voice (1940)
• Tomorrow Started Yesterday (1940)
• Hunger Allows No Choice (1941)
• Mad in Pursuit (1945)
• A Magnum for my Mother (1946)
• Champagne for Mother (1947)
• An Awful Lot of Coffee (1950)
• Five-Day Crossing (1952)
• In the Money (1952)

Films

• Appointment in London
  Appointment in London
  Appointment in London is a 1952 war film starring Dirk Bogarde and set during World War II. The film was directed by Philip Leacock from a screenplay by John Wooldridge and Robert Westerby and based on an original story by Wooldridge...
  
  
• Cone of Silence
  Cone of Silence (1960 film)
  Cone of Silence is a film about the investigation into a series of crashes involving the fictional "Atlas Aviation Phoenix" jetliner. In the United States, the film was released under the title Trouble in the Sky...
  
  
• The Devil's Agent
  The Devil's Agent
  The Devil's Agent is a 1962 drama film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Peter van Eyck, Marianne Koch, Christopher Lee and Macdonald Carey. It was a co-production between Britain, West Germany and the Republic of Ireland and was an English-language version of the German film Im Namen...
  
  
• Don't Ever Leave Me
  Don't Ever Leave Me
  Don't Ever Leave Me is a 1949 English romantic comedy film starring Petula Clark, Jimmy Hanley, Hugh Sinclair, Edward Rigby, and Anthony Newley...
  
  
• Dr Syn, Alias the Scarecrow
• The Fighting Prince of Donegal
  The Fighting Prince of Donegal
  The Fighting Prince of Donegal is a 1966 Disney adventure film starring Peter McEnery and Susan Hampshire, based on the novel Red Hugh: Prince of Donegal by Robert T. Reilly. It was released through Buena Vista Distribution Company.-Plot:...
  
  
• Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog
  Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of a Dog
  Greyfriars Bobby is a 1961 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Donald Crisp and Laurence Naismith in a story about two Scottish men who compete for the affection of a Skye Terrier named Bobby...
  
  
• Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance
  Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance
  Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Mario Camerini and starring Paul Guers.-Cast:* Paul Guers - Dr. Simon Palmer* Senta Berger - Catherine Talbot* Lex Barker - Maj. Ford* Sergio Fantoni - Ram Chand...
  
  
• Malaga
  Malaga (film)
  Malaga is a 1954 British film starring Maureen O'Hara as a former O.S.S. James Bond type secret agent and Macdonald Carey as a smuggler. It was directed by Richard Sale on location in Malaga and set in the international city of Tangiers...
  
  
• Night Beat
  Night Beat (1947 film)
  Night Beat is a 1947 British crime drama film directed by Harold Huth and starring Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed, Ronald Howard, Christine Norden and Sid James. Following the Second World War two comrades go their separate ways one joining the Metropolitan police while the other becomes a racketeer...
  
  
• Sea of Sand
  Sea of Sand
  Sea of Sand is a 1958 war film produced by Tempean Films starring Michael Craig, John Gregson and Richard Attenborough...
  
  
• South of Algiers
  South of Algiers
  South of Algiers is a 1953 British adventure film, directed by Jack Lee and starring Van Heflin, Wanda Hendrix and Eric Portman...
  
  
• The Spider and the Fly
• The Square Ring
  The Square Ring
  The Square Ring is a 1953 British film directed by Basil Dearden and made at Ealing Studios. It stars Jack Warner, Robert Beatty and Bill Owen...
  
  
• The Surgeon's Knife
  The Surgeon's Knife
  The Surgeon's Knife is a 1957 British crime film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Donald Houston, Adrienne Corri and Lyndon Brook.-Cast:* Donald Houston - Dr. Alex Waring* Adrienne Corri - Laura Shelton* Lyndon Brook - Dr. Ian Breck...
  
  
• They Who Dare
  They Who Dare
  They Who Dare is a 1954 World War II war film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Dirk Bogarde, Harold Siddons, Akim Tamiroff and Eric Pohlmann. The story is based on events that took place during World War II in the Dodecanese islands where special forces attempted to disrupt the Luftwaffe...
  
  
• The Three Lives of Thomasina
  The Three Lives of Thomasina
  The Three Lives of Thomasina is a 1964 British-American Disney fantasy feature film starring Patrick McGoohan, Susan Hampshire, and child actress Karen Dotrice in a story about a cat and her influence on a family. The screenplay was written by Robert Westerby and Paul Gallico and was based upon...
  
  
• War and Peace
  War and Peace (1956 film)
  War and Peace is the first English-language film version of the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It is an American/Italian version, directed by King Vidor and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti. The music score was by Nino Rota and the cinematography by Jack Cardiff...
  
  
• Woman Hater
  Woman Hater
  Woman Hater is a 1948 British romantic comedy film directed by Terence Young and starring Stewart Granger, Edwige Feuillère and Ronald Squire. Lord Datchett invites a French film star to stay as his house but pretends to be one of his employees while he tries to romance her with the help of his...
  
  

Television

• Disneyland
• The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
  Alfred Hitchcock Presents
  Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
  
  
• Sword of Freedom
  Sword of Freedom
  Sword of Freedom was a 1958 drama adventure series for a family audience. Like several of its predecessors , it was produced by Sapphire Films for ITC Entertainment and fitted into the same swashbuckler genre as previous productions...
  
  
• The Invisible man
  The Invisible Man (1958 TV series)
  The Invisible Man was a 1958 ITP Production/Official Films Inc. presentation for Associated TeleVision. The series was networked on CBS in the United States. It ran for 26 half-hour monochrome episodes across two seasons and was nominally based on the novel by H.G...
  
  

External links

• Internet Movie Database
• London Books: Robert Westerby biography
• London Books:Wide Boys Never Work - Robert Westerby (essay review by Martin Knight, 2008)