THE great days of early silent cinema in York will be recalled next Thursday, when local author Tim Murgatroyd launches his latest novel.

The Electric is set in 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War.

A young man, scarred - physically and mentally - by the Great War, hitches a ride into the city on a barge carrying cocoa beans to the Rowntree chocolate factory.

David Young has never been to York before, and knows no-one in the city.

A musician by training, he has heard of a vacancy for a violinist in the orchestra at a down-at-heels York cinema, The Electric. Physically and mentally shattered by his experiences as a wartime pilot, The Electric seems as good a place as any for him to try to make a new start.

And so he joins the cinema's staff - becoming part of a small group of misfits who, together, forge a family of sorts in a world that's rapidly changing.

Tim, a former Press columnist and author of several earlier novels, including Taming Poison Dragons, about the life of a medieval Chinese poet, says that he was drawn to the theme of his latest novel by the magic of silent cinema - and the live music which accompanied it.

"The silent cinema is an art form that has been greatly neglected," he said. "It was a period of real artistic creativity - there were really high levels of engagement for the audiences."

But there was a more personal reason for him writing the book, too.

As a struggling young writer living in London in his late 20s, Tim volunteered with a visitor scheme, with the idea of visiting a lonely older person once a week.

That was how he met William Lea. "Bill was sixty years older than me, a widower living in a sheltered flat in West London," Tim said.

"The volunteer co-ordinator warned me Bill had already ‘got through’ two other ‘lady visitors’: she hoped he would get on better with a man.

"Her choice was wise. We hit it off from the start. Over several years we graduated from beers in his front room to the local pub and even to Proms concerts. Bill had a particular passion for music, arising from his career as a professional violinist - first, in silent cinemas and then, after the advent of the talkies, leading the band in a transatlantic liner sailing between Glasgow and New York.

"Bill had no end of stories...and through him I learned about the lost art of the cinema musician."

It was an interest that was to spark into life decades later when Tim wrote The Electric. The cinema of the title is based loosely upon a real cinema of that name (later The Scala, now the Cosy Club) in Fossgate.

But his novel brings to life other long-lost cinemas in York, too - and the 'cinema wars' that raged between them as the Twenties roared a century ago.

Tim Murgatroyd will be officially launch his new novel The Electric at Explore York Library at 6.30pm on Thursday as part of Big City Read - tickets here. He'll also talk about how he came to write the book at an event at Waterstones on Wednesday October 26 - tickets here.

And if you're still wondering what is so special about silent films performed to live music, he recommends a gala performance - with live music - of the 1926 silent-era classic The Phantom Of The Opera (1925) at City Screen, York, on October 28: tickets here.