The Invention of Baron Avro Manhattan

Avro was an Italian who lived in a modest terraced house in South Shields from 1963 to his death in 1990. Certain things are known about him: He wrote over 30 books, most of which are critical of the Catholic Church. HG Wells wrote the foreword to one of his books. He was intimate with Marie Stopes, the birth control pioneer. He studied painting with the well-known Russian sculptor, Paolo Troubetzkoy, who sculpted a bust of George Bernard Shaw. He moved from Italy to London in 1937. He married Anne Cunningham Brown, a nurse from South Shields, in 1986. He was interned during the war and briefly transported to Canada, from whence he returned in 1941. He visited Russia to spend the royalties there from one of his books. He was a well-known figure in South Shields where his bust was in the library.