Search results for ""history press""

Why did London have to wait so long for a main-line railway beneath its streets? For a few years in the mid-nineteenth century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s broad-gauge Great Western trains ran from Reading to Faringdon. Now, after many false starts, his vision is being realised as the Elizabeth Line prepares to carry passengers from Reading to the City once again, and beyond to Essex and Kent, using engineering that would have earned the admiration of the greatest Victorian engineers. London historian Stephen Halliday presents an engaging discussion of Crossrail’s fascinating origins and the heroic engineering that made it all possible.

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Our image of workhouses has often been coloured by the writings of authors such as Charles Dickens. But what was the reality? Where exactly were all these institutions located - and what happened to them? You might be surprised to discover that a building in your own town, now transformed into flats or part of a local hospital, was once a workhouse. Revealing buildings steeped in social history, Workhouses of London and the South East provides a comprehensive and copiously illustrated guide to the workhouses that were set up across London and the neighbouring counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire.

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"NAVIGATING AND ENGINEERING OFFICERS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY FOR VERY LARGE CRUDE OIL CARRIER. TANKER EXPERIENCE PREFERRED." - Lloyd’s List and Shipping GazetteThe advertisement captured Ray Solly’s attention whilst he was on leave and demanded direct action! Viewed from the bridge of dry-cargo ships, the sleek lines of VLCCs and their potential navigational challenges always intrigued Ray – so, without hesitation, he grabbed the chance, leaving his current employer, and setting out to fulfil a dream. Supertanker examines life at sea aboard a 1970s monster where reader and author meet on board, encountering and overcoming exciting new challenges in navigation, ship handling, and cargo control. All the while, overshadowing everything else, is the awareness that this loaded ship carries around 80 million gallons of oil every day. But Supertanker is more than just the record of a new adventure. It lifts the lid on the realities of life far out at sea handling such behemoths and reveals why international safety and competency bars had to be raised.

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Where in Yorkshire can you walk on a dragon’s backbone? Who goes dancing at the Spot Bottom Hops? Which very old story gives advice about loading a dishwasher? Which mischievous child invented Yorkshire pudding? And is it safe to offer a gift to a small-toothed dog? Yorkshire has a rich heritage of fantastical folk stories, traditional tales and words of wisdom handed down through generations. These tales are beautifully retold here for 7- to 11-year-old readers, written and illustrated by storyteller and artist Carmel Page –a southerner by birth but who has lived in Sheffield for so long that she now uses her backdoor as her frontdoor and has started to eat her dinner at lunchtime.

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The first Irish railway ran from Westland Row, in the centre of Dublin, to Kingstown, then a seaside resort on the coast south of the city. This historic line is now the DART line, Kingstown has become Dún Laoghaire and the world has changed around it. In this work, historian and author Kurt Kullmann recreates this era and takes us on a scenic journey through Ireland’s past.

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Victorian Brackley was sometimes called Sleepy Hollow. Compared to many other places, growth in numbers was modest, but beneath the surface, there were extraordinary scandals and power struggles, some of which reached the national press. Above all, there was a great physical transformation involving the construction of a new Vicarage, Church Schools and Manor House, together with the restorations of St Peter’s Church and the College Chapel. This book investigates great Brackley characters such as Francis Thicknesse and Tommy Judge and the power struggle between Church and Chapel, Liberal and Tory. Finally it tells the story of the arrival of the Great Central Railway and the appearance of new forces in the decade before the First World War. Written by a leading authority on the history of the area, this richly illustrated volume recounts the remarkable transformation of this Northamptonshire town during the Victorian age.

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Where do stories come from, and how do we come to know them? Daughters listen with wonder to their grandmothers’ tales. Journalists have their trusted sources. Writers of storybooks draw unconsciously from the works of their predecessors. It is as if every story has within it an infallible truth, contained in the echo of its original telling. The storyteller recounts the tale. The listener hears, learns and remembers. In due course they will retell the same tale, adding in something of their own. And so listeners in time turn into storytellers. This inspiring book brings together the stories from across the world of listeners who themselves became storytellers. They reveal who influenced them the most, what drew them further in, what they learnt, and what they now wish to share with new generations. Tips, tools and tales: read this book, and take your turn.

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Television, penicillin, the telephone, A Haverin' History of Scotland. All of these have been created by a Scotsperson, although not all will appear on a tea towel listing great Scottish inventions.* Scotland is as old as any other country – maybe even more so, judging by the state of the pavements. This means that it has a lot of a history. A lot! Some of those whose epic deeds have echoed down the centuries include William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace, King Robert ‘the Bruce’ the Bruce and Queen Mary ‘Queen of Scots’ Queen of Scots. Among many others, they all feature in this concise and relatively cheap history of the country people all over the world call Scotland. Because that is its name. Whether you know your Scottish history, or you think the Lewis Chessmen were a 1960s beat combo, A Haverin’ History of Scotland is the unreliable history book for you. *Does anyone still watch television?

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The Brief History of Lancashire starts, as all good histories should, with the beginning – the moment when the detritus of a dying star, spinning through the depths of the Milky Way, began to cool and coalesce, and rain – typically for Lancashire – began to fall as the moisture in the new atmosphere began to condense. A planet was formed, and history as we know it had begun. Racing through the history of Lancashire, with Neolithic residents, Romans, Civil War victories and Victorians – and, of course, a few cotton mills along the way – this delightful book will tell you everything you ought to know about the dramatic and fascinating history of the county – and a few things you never thought you would.

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Queen Victoria was the first in a new breed of Cunard Ships: her design is enhanced to give her the ability to cross the North Atlantic. Introduced to service in 2007, Queen Victoria’s reign is young; however, she has had a notable career with royal engagements, tandem Atlantic crossings and Gala-World Cruises where she has been welcomed with open arms. Illustrated with stunning colour photographs taken by the authors from every area of the ship, and fully updated after the extensive 2017 refit, this book provides a lasting memento of a voyage aboard Cunard’s stately monarch.

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This fascinating book provides a unique record of the careers and final underwater resting places of ships of the Cunard Line, whose rich history spans over 300 ships and nearly two centuries. Many books have been published on Cunard’s heritage but the final fate of these ships is often little more than a footnote of history. Authors Sam Warwick and Mike Roussel have taken the shipwrecks as a starting point to create a vivid new history. Featured vessels include the well-known Caronia, Lancastria, Campania, Lusitania, Malta, Oregon, Scotia and Carpathia, famous for rescuing the survivors from the Titanic, as well as many others. Events surrounding the wrecking of each vessel are thoroughly explored and unique diver accounts are incorporated, along with never-before-seen underwater images of the wrecks. Finishing off with practical data for interested divers, this book offers a fresh analysis of Cunard’s maritime history.

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Celebrating Liverpool’s cultural heritage, world-class sport and unrivalled musical legacy, this quiz book invites you to come on a wide-ranging exploration of this vibrant city. Peel away its many layers in the company of one of Liverpool’s top Blue Badge tourist guides. These 22 tours will inspire you, your family, colleagues and friends to leap from page to pavement in the entertaining company of a local expert. Have fun! This book is a welcome addition to a series of regional quiz books written exclusively by Blue Badge guides – ‘Britain’s best guides’ – local, professional guides rigorously examined by the Institute of Tourist Guiding, the industry’s standard-setting body. World-renowned for their knowledge, interpretation skills and enthusiasm for their area! www.britainsbestguides.org

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The bloody Albigensian Crusade launched against the Cathar heretics of southern France in the early thirteenth century is infamous for its brutality and savagery, even by the standards of the Middle Ages. It was marked by massacres and acts of appalling cruelty, deeds commonly ascribed to the role of religious fanaticism. Here, in the first military history of the whole conflict, Sean McGlynn tells the story of the crusade through its epic sieges of seemingly impregnable fortresses, desperate battles and destructive campaigns, and offers expert analysis of the warfare involved, revealing the crusade in a different light – as a bloody territorial conquest in which acts of terror were perpetrated to secure military aims rather than religious ones. The dramatic events of the crusade and its colourful leading characters – Simon de Montfort, Louis the Lion, Innocent III, Peter of Aragon, Count Raymond of Toulouse – are brought to life through the voices of contemporary writers who fought and experienced it.

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The Ironbridge Gorge, a cradle of the Industrial Revolution, in the late 18th century was a magnet for writers, artists and industrial spies. The latest wonders of engineering and metallurgical technology were to be seen in a spectacular natural setting, where the fast-flowing Severn passed between towering cliffs of limestone, and hillsides honeycombed with mine workings amid the smoke of furnaces and the clanking of engines. Barrie Trinder, the acknowledged authority on the subject, has selected the most interesting descriptions and pictures to provide an invaluable anthology, through contemporary evidence, of the place and the people in that pioneering period, when this corner of Shropshire was changing the world and was indeed, as Charles Hulbert described it in 1837, ‘the most extraordinary district in the world’. This book has become essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of this fascinating area, or in the Industrial Revolution in general. It brings new understanding of the gorge itself and the industrial monuments preserved there and new insights for the specialist historian, whether concerned with social conditions, popular religion or industrial technology. This edition will continue to serve the same main groups of readers – local historians, educational groups and specialist historians – and, most of all, those general readers who know the area and recognise that something strange and seminal happened there that transformed not only Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale but the whole of our civilisation. The activity that once made the gorge so extraordinary has spread and grown to become a commonplace in modern industrial societies, leaving the place where it began a monument and a museum.

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Duncan Harley takes the reader on a grand tour of the curious and the bizarre, the strange and the unusual from Aberdeenshire’s past. Read about the Beatles’ first, and almost their last, tour of the North-east, the Deeside artist who tended plaster sheep, and the strange tale of the Typhoid Queen. Learn about Hitler’s secret bunker at Stonehaven, the doomed Marquis of Montrose, and the mysterious Mound of Death at Inverurie. Along the way you’ll also meet scandalous residents, determined inventors, and Royal personages galore. The A-Z of Curious Aberdeenshire is guaranteed to enthrall both residents and visitors alike.

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Great passenger ships that never were is a completely revised and updated version of Damned by Destiny (Teredo Books, 1982), a comprehensive account of the large passenger ships that, for one reason or another, never entered commercial service. Some never made it off the drawing board or out of the model shop, some met with disaster after launch and some were diverted to wartime service but didn’t survive, never used for their original purpose. They were all the victims of circumstance, whether due to financial crises, timing or changing technology. Some of these liners and cruise vessels may have become the greatest passenger ships ever achieved. They would have surpassed the most famous, not only in speed and splendour but in size and appearance, besides setting trends that were subsequently adopted for ships that did enter service. With beautiful pictures and detailed diagrams this book is a true insight into what might have been.

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‘To shoot a man on the spur of the moment in the presence of the king and his court, not to mention the cardinal and his household, that took a boldness … Or utter despair.’ - Hampton Court, 1522Lawyer Hugh Mac Egan has arrived from Ireland to draw up the marriage contract between James Butler, son of his employer the Earl of Ormond, and Anne Boleyn – a dynastic alliance that will resolve an age-old inheritance dispute. But Anne, it seems, has other ideas. Her heart is set on Harry Percy, heir to the magnificent earldom of Northumberland, sparking rivalry between the two young men. When a member of Cardinal Wolsey’s palace staff is found shot dead with an arrow, Percy is quick to give evidence that implicates Butler. And with Percy’s testimony backed up by Butler’s artful bride-to-be, things start to look bleak for the young Irishman. In Tudor England, the accused is guilty until proven innocent. Against the backdrop of the Lenten festivities, Mac Egan sets out to exonerate his patron’s heir and find the real killer, uncovering as he does so the many factions and intrigues that lie beneath the surface at the cardinal’s court.

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1950s Ireland was the age of De Valera and John Charles McQuaid. It was the age before television, Vatican II, and home central heating. A time when motor cars and public telephones had wind-up handles, when boys wore short trousers and girls wore ribbons, when nuns wore white bonnets and priests wore black hats in church. To the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age. But for those who played, learned and worked at this time, this era feels like just yesterday. This delightful collection of memories will appeal to all who grew up in 1950s Ireland and will jog memories about all aspects of life as it was.

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A knight in glass armour, the basilisk of Saffron Walden, Old King Cole of Colchester – Essex is a place full of fantastical characters and mysterious tales. Storyteller Jan Williams is a familiar sight around the county, entrancing locals with her tales of ghostly Romans and vicious Vikings. These stories – specially chosen to be enjoyed by 7- to 11-year-old readers – will unlock the colourful world of Essex and help children to engage with their surroundings.

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The Second World War saw heroic efforts made by the Allied forces from its very outset, but in May 1940 disaster befell the British Expeditionary Force in France. Isolated from the rest of their allies, they faced insurmountable numbers of enemy troops. All was so very nearly lost, until the German land forces were given the surprise order by Adolf Hitler to halt briefly. Taking advantage of this unexpected but welcome turn of events, the British troops fled for the beaches of Dunkirk and fortified them while the Royal Navy dispatched almost 900 ships and boats to rescue British and Allied soldiers from the jaws of defeat. In all, over 300,000 men were evacuated, while 40,000 brave rearguard troops lost their lives or their freedom for the good of their allies. Operation Dynamo, and its remarkable evacuations from the beaches of Dunkirk, was hailed by Winston Churchill as a ‘miracle of deliverance’, but he also warned that ‘wars are not won by evacuations’. This was only the beginning of a conflict that was to last five long years, but for now the fight for freedom could continue. Here Tim Lynch presents the true story of this miraculous event using stunning, rare images from the Mirrorpix archive.

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The Southern Railway may not have been the most glamorous of the ‘Big Four’ companies that emerged from the grouping of 1923, but it was the great innovator. In the 1930s the Southern pioneered the first main-line electrification and created the largest electrified suburban railway network in the world. It was also one of the few to offer regular departures and the first to run true international services, introducing the ‘Night Ferry’ through-trains from London to Paris using special ferries. Forming part of a series, along with The GWR Handbook, The LMS Handbook and The LNER Handbook, this new edition provides an authoritative and highly detailed reference of information about the Southern Railway.

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In 1933 the Admiralty banned ‘Blinker’ Hall from publishing his autobiography, but here, for the first time, those chapters that survived are presented in full. See what the renowned spymaster had to say about the British Naval Intelligence – the pinnacle of the world’s secret intelligence services. He explores the function of secret intelligence in wartime, censorship, subterfuge, the significance of Churchill in the Dardanelles campaign, the Zimmermann Telegram, the USA’s entry to the First World War and more. With supporting text and images by Philip Vickers and a foreword by expert author Nigel West, A Clear Case of Genius provides a unique insight into the thinking of one of Britain’s pioneering intelligence leaders.

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1217: Commoner-turned-earl's-man Edwin Weaver joins the earl's army as it marches for the Kent coast to defend the realm against an invading French fleet. But when a series of accidents puts the earl's life in danger, he soon realises that the enemy is closer at hand. Before he can solve the mystery, however, Edwin finds he must face a double horror: not only a bloody battle, but one that will take place on the high seas. As the bodies pile up, Edwin discovers that it is not just the French who are trying to kill him ...

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If you enjoyed the first volume of the definitive quiz book on Arsenal Football Club, this all-new sequel is for you. Packed with over 300 carefully researched questions, it will test the breadth and depth of your Gunners knowledge – from the familiar to the formidable. Go on another exhilarating spin through the 130-year history of one of the world’s greatest football clubs, taking in the results and records, triumphs and trophies, superstars and substitutes, headlines and footnotes, artists and artisans, goal-scoring legends and defensive stalwarts who’ve helped create Arsenal’s rich footballing legacy. Whether you stood on Highbury’s North Bank or became a Gooner during the Wenger/ Emirates era, this book of tantalising teasers provides an engrossing diversion on every excursion to an Arsenal away game with fellow Gunners fans.

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An ornate Victorian manor sat in picturesque surroundings overlooking the River Thames at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire. Perhaps not the first place that springs to mind when considering the top-secret photographic interpretation that helped secure an Allied victory in the Second World War, but this was the headquarters of the Allied Central Interpretation Unit. It was here that air photography from all over enemy-occupied Europe was pored over by photographic interpreters, who sought out intricate details of enemy activity which then influenced virtually every Allied operation of the war. These quick-minded men and women were the ones to find out where the infamous German V-weapons were being constructed, were the first to see the results of the Dambusters’ raid and were sworn to utmost secrecy on everything they viewed. Women made up half of this work force and were, unusually, treated as equals with their male counterparts: the best person for the job, regardless of gender. Here the women of Medmenham, the ‘Women of Intelligence’ from Churchill’s daughter to girls escaping home for the first time, tell the story of their wartime life and work – in their own words.

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From a single beginning, countless millions of stories from the animal kingdom have – and continue to – run their course. Museum objects allow us to investigate some of those stories. Animal Kingdom journeys through both the evolutionary history of animals, and the ways that people have interpreted them in museums. Animals in museums are not only representatives of their entire species, but they also tell us something about the time in which they were collected. They provide windows into the past as well as data for the present. They embody centuries of natural ecosystems and human cultures. Through a selection of 100 objects, telling 100 stories, this beautifully illustrated book explores the diversity of animal life over the past 600 million years, and delves into some of the most exciting mechanisms in evolution. By understanding some of the key stories of how nature operates, we can gain amazing insight into the systems underlying life itself.

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When the First World War broke out, Morris Meredith Williams was living in Edinburgh with his wife Alice, a sculptor, and earning his living from book illustration and teaching. A short man, his attempt to join the army in 1914 failed, but six months later he was accepted by the 17th Battalion, The Welsh Regiment, the first Bantam battalion to be raised in Wales. From June 1916, he spent ten months in and out of the trenches of the Western Front near Loos, Arras and the Somme, later mapping enemy positions from aerial reconnaissance shots with the Heavy Artillery. In 1918 he joined the Royal Engineers’ camouflage unit at Wimereux. After the peace, he was among a handful of artists kept back to make paintings for the official record and toured the shattered landscape in an old ambulance car. Never without a sketchbook and pencils in his pocket, he drew at every opportunity, producing an extraordinary record of his surroundings. After the war some of the sketches became oil paintings while others inspired a series of war memorials in bronze, stone, wood and stained glass, most notably for the Scottish National War Memorial, on which he and Alice worked together. In this stunning book, the Meredith Williams’s art is displayed in fine style, ranging from the touching and heartfelt to the most brutal, stark images of the waste and loss of war.

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On Sunday 5 October 2014, the 75,000 strong crowd at Old Trafford for Manchester United’s game against Everton joined in with an extended version of a chant which echoed around the stadium. ‘We all live in a Georgie Best world,’ it went. Eleven years after his death, forty years after he walked out of the club for the last time as a player, Best remains a Giant – extraordinary given that his star shone for such a brief time. He was at the top of the game for no more than half a dozen years. How did he do it?

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Do you remember a time when footballers’ perms were tighter than their shorts? When supporters still swayed on terraces? When a chain-smoking doctor played central midfield for Brazil? Take a nostalgic stroll back to an era when football on TV was still an occasional treat, when almost anyone could finish runners-up to Liverpool and when finishing fourth in the top flight was not a cause for celebration but a sackable offence! Football in the 1980s is an affectionate look at all the essential facts, stats and anecdotes from the decade before the national game was commercially rebranded. Including both some of modern football’s darkest days and its most memorable matches, Football in the 1980s will take you back to a time of tough tackles, muddy pitches and cheap seats. Read on for a grandstand view . . .

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Caroline Herschel was a prolific writer and recorder of her private and academic life, through diaries, autobiographies for family members, notebooks and observation notes. Yet for reasons unknown she destroyed all of her notebooks and diaries from 1788 to 1797. As a result, we have almost no record of the decade in which she made her most influential mark on science when she discovered eight comets and became the first woman to have a paper read at the Royal Society. Here, for the first time, historian Dr Emily Winterburn looks deep into Caroline’s life and wonders why, in the year following the marriage of her brother and constant companion, Caroline wanted no record of her life to remain. Was she consumed with grief and jealousy? By piecing together – from letters, reminiscences and museum objects – a detailed account of that time, we get to see a new side to history’s ‘most admirable lady astronomer’ and one of the greatest pioneering female scientists of all time.

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The First World War saw one of the biggest ever changes in the demographics of warfare, as thousands of women donned uniforms and took an active part in conflict for the first time in history. Female Tommies looks at the military role of women worldwide during the Great War and reveals the extraordinary women who served on the frontline. Through their diaries, letters and memoirs, meet the women who defied convention and followed their convictions to defend the less fortunate and fight for their country. Follow British Flora Sandes as she joins the Serbian Army and takes up a place in the rearguard of the Iron Regiment as they retreat from the Bulgarian advance. Stow away with Dorothy Lawrence as she smuggles herself to Paris, steals a uniform and heads to the front. Enlist in Russia’s all-female ‘Battalion of Death’ alongside peasant women and princesses alike. The personal accounts of these women, who were members of organisations such as the US Army Signal Corps, the Canadian Army Medical Corps, the FANY, WRAF, WRNS, WAAC and many others, provide a valuable insight into what life was like for women in a male-dominated environment.

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England against Australia for the Ashes – it is one of the oldest and greatest rivalries in sport and almost its entire history has been covered in The Times. The whole story is here: from Shane Warne’s ball of the century in 1993 to Gilbert Jessop’s power hitting at The Oval in 1902; from the infamous Bodyline tour of 1932–33 to England’s surrender to the pace of Lillee and Thomson in 1974–75; from Len Hutton’s Coronation-year triumph in 1953 to the long years of defeat before the Ashes were finally recaptured in 2005. The Times on the Ashes showcases great batsmen like Bradman, Ponting, Gower, Trumper, Boycott, Greg Chappell, and the great bowlers of Trueman, Warne, Larwood, Lillee, Underwood, McGrath, Anderson, along with the great captains such as Brearley, Ian Chappell, Vaughan, Armstrong, Jardine, Steve Waugh and Hutton. This book recaptures more than a century of the highs and lows of Ashes cricket through the pages of The Times and features some of the greatest writers in the history of the sport.

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From a cantankerous brownie in Dolphinton to the vampire with iron teeth who terrorised Glasgow, this collection of tales spans fourteen centuries of Lanarkshire's history and happenings. Here you will find the legends of William Wallace's love and loss in Lanark and Saint Mungo's bitter feud with the Pagan hierarchy and Druids, alongside totemic animals, unique Scottish flora and fauna, warlocks, herb-wives and elfin trickery.Allison Galbraith combines storytelling expertise with two decades of folklore research to present this beguiling collection of Lanarkshire stories, suitable for adults and older children.

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Before Diana Mitford's disgrace as a social pariah, she was a celebrated member of the Bright Young Things, moving at the centre of 1920s and '30s London high society. She was a muse to many: Helleu painted her, James Lees-Milne worshipped her, Evelyn Waugh dedicated a book to her and Winston Churchill nicknamed her 'Dina-mite'. As the young wife of Bryan Guinness, heir to the Guinness brewing empire, she lived a gilded life until fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley turned her head. Unpublished letters, diaries and archives bring an unknown Diana to life, creating a portrait of a beautiful woman whose charm and personality enthralled all who met her, but the discourse of her life would ultimately act as a cautionary tale. This groundbreaking biography reveals the woman behind the myth.

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This fascinating pictorial history takes a look back at the days when Fife was home to a wide variety of traditional industries, including mining, farming, fishing, pottery and textile factories, shipping and shipbuilding. Featuring over 160 archive images, each accompanied by an informative caption, this volume recalls the people who lived and worked here – the linen workers at their looms, the farmers feeding lambs, the miners heading to their collieries, and the fishermen with their nets – all of which paint a vivid picture of a way of life now largely disappeared. While a number of Fife businesses have been handed down through several generations, adapting and modernising as necessary over the years, many have finally closed after decades of trade, but are nevertheless fondly remembered.

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From the Stone Age to the present day, no technology has had a more profound impact on mankind than watercraft. Boats and ships made possible the settlement and conquest of new worlds. They determined the victors of history-changing wars and aided the spread of new philosophies, technologies and religions. Even today, virtually everything we purchase and consume depends on seaborne trade. 'Ships that Changed History' is more than just a delight for lovers of the sea – it’s a virtual history of the world told through the boats and ships that influenced how and where people lived, the ideas they exchanged and how they won and lost the battles that set the course of later generations and millennia. Beautifully illustrated with art and photographs, it is a guide to how men and women went to sea in every age and place.

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By the 1970s it looked as if QE2 would be the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners. However, over three decades later the world watched in awe as Queen Mary 2, the largest, longest, grandest and most expensive ocean liner ever to be constructed, set sail on her maiden voyage in 2004. With 14 decks and beautiful lounges, dining rooms and a ballroom, QM2 evokes the glamour of the golden age of ocean travel. QM2: A Photographic Journey allows the reader to experience this unique vessel from the comfort of their own home, with numerous photographs of each of QM2’s public rooms as well as stunning exterior shots and behind the scenes access. This revised edition has been extensively updated to reflect the 2016 refit, with many new photographs from around the ship.

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The Orient Line was once one of the most recognised names operating on the route between Great Britain and Australia, forming an important connection between the many peoples of the Empire. The great vessels of Orient Line included Oronsay, Orsova, Orcades and Oriana. Despite being formed with no mail subsidy and a dominant competitor in P&O, the Orient Line endured. It survived two world wars, the Great Depression and stormy seas – carrying everything from mail to royalty, troops to tourists. From the early days of the Orient Line of Clipper Ships through the era of steam driven liners, to the final Orient Line voyage, this book showcases the history of Orient Line with an exquisite collection of rare photographs.

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An estimated 15,000 people live on board boats in the UK and many more are interested in possibly doing so. The aim of this beautifully illustrated guide is to help people live the dream and not the nightmare, providing a useful step by step illustrated guide on the basics of getting afloat and staying there. The book covers the different types of craft available to the buyer and their good and bad points, and discusses such practicalities as moorings, engines (including basic maintenance and fault finding), layout and furnishing a boat, heating and cooking, types of fuel and stove, safety, options on sanitation, electrics, hull blacking, painting, water tank, survival tips and finances.

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Following his first three successful books, describing his long career as a military pilot, Mike Brooke completes the story with more tales of test flying during the 1980s and ’90s. During this period his career changed to see him take control of flying at Farnborough and then at Boscombe Down, as well as off-the-cuff delivery missions to Saudi Arabia, ‘bombing’ in the name of science in the Arctic and the chance to fulfil a long-standing dream and fly the vintage SE.5a. This often hilarious memoir gives a revealing insight into military and civilian test flying of a wide range of aircraft, weapons and systems. As in his previous books, Brooke continues to use his personal experiences to give the reader a unique view of flight trials of the times, successes and failures. More Testing Times and its earlier volumes make for fascinating reading for any aviation enthusiast.

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It was early Cold War days when 17-year-old David Eagles applied to the Fleet Air Arm hoping to be a fighter pilot for his national service. He little imagined the career that would follow. After flying training with the US Navy and Australian Fleet Air Arm, he settled into Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot life. He progressed through Naval Test Pilot duties – where he was forced to eject from a Buccaneer during catapult launch trials – before joining British Aerospace and playing a major part in the cockpit design and flight-testing of the RAF’s first fly-by-wire and swing-wing aircraft, the Panavia Tornado. His other experiences include ditching a Firefly into the sea and the near loss of the first British Tornado prototype after a bird strike. Finally, after 6,000 flying hours in sixty different types of aircraft, Eagles finished his career by making the first flight of the EAP, the technology demonstrator for the new Eurofighter Typhoon. Vividly illustrated with photographs, documents and plans, this is a fascinating memoir of naval-flying and test-flying some of the world’s most iconic fighters.

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In autumn 1943 the Italian-held Dodecanese was the setting for the last decisive German invasion of the Second World War – and the last irreversible British defeat. After the Italian armistice that followed the downfall of Mussolini, Churchill seized the opportunity to open a new front in the eastern Mediterranean, thereby increasing the pressure against Germany and hoping to provide an incentive for Turkey to join the Allies. Rejected by the Americans, it was a strategy fraught with difficulties and doomed to fail. Spearheaded by the LRDG and SBS, British troops were dispatched to the Aegean with naval units, but little or no air cover. They were opposed by German assault troops with overwhelming air superiority. Within 3 months, German forces had seized nearly all of the Dodecanese, which was occupied until the end of the war.

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The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, including the deaths of over a thousand 'Men of Lancaster', and its legacy continues to be remembered today. This book looks at the impact that the loss of so many men had on the community and offers an intimate portrayal of Lancaster and its people living in the shadow of the 'war to end all wars'. Drawing on detailed research conducted by the authors and their community partners, it describes the local reaction to the outbreak of war, the experience of individuals who enlisted, the changing face of industry, the women who defied convention to play a vital role on the home front, and how Lancaster coped with the transition to life in peacetime once more. The Great War story of Lancaster draws on all of these experiences to present a unique account of the local reality of a global conflict.

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London has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the city’s unique appeal. Featuring famous London landmarks such as Buckingham Palace and the London Eye as well as beautiful scenes of London life, each stunning scene is full of intriguing detail sure to fire the imagination and make you reach for your colouring pencils. There are absolutely no rules – you can choose any combination of colours you like. Suitable for children. If you love London, then you will love colouring it in!

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In this new biography, published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of her execution, Mata Hari is revealed in all of her flawed eccentricity; a woman whose adult life was a fantastical web of lies, half-truths and magnetic sexuality that captivated men. Following the death of a young son and a bitter divorce, Mata Hari reinvented herself as an exotic dancer in Paris, before finally taking up the life of a courtesan. She could have remained a half-forgotten member of France’s grande horizontale were it not for the First World War and her disastrous decision to become embroiled in espionage. What happened next was part farce and part tragedy that ended in her execution in October 1917. Recruited by both the Germans and the French as a spy, Mata Hari – codenamed H-21 – was also almost recruited by the Russians. But the harmless fantasies and lies she had told on stage had become part of the deadly game of double agents during wartime. Struggling with the huge cost of war, the French authorities needed to catch a spy. Mata Hari, the dancer, the courtesan, the fantasist, became the prize catch.

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Originally published in 1964, this is a critically acclaimed classic history of the military engagements of the Somme that raged from July to November 1916. It tells of bloody battles interspersed with trench actions of dreadful intensity. In addition to the key confrontations, Farrar-Hockley provides a detailed background to the Somme planning and why it failed with dreadful casualties. In its entirety, the conflict along the Somme scarred the minds of a whole generation, becoming recorded by historians as the graveyard of the 'flower of British manhood'. With a new introduction by Charles Messenger, and a touching foreword by the author's son, Dair Farrar-Hockley, this new edition of The Somme is a testament to those who gave their lives on this famous battlefield.

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Liverpool has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the city’s unique appeal. Featuring a range of picturesque vistas, from iconic architecture and waterways, to the city’s musical and maritime heritage, each scene is full of intriguing detail sure to fire the imagination and make you reach for your colouring pencils. There are absolutely no rules – you can choose any combination of colours you like to bring these images to life. Suitable for children. If you love Liverpool, then you will love colouring it in!

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Hampshire has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the county’s unique appeal. Featuring a range of picturesque vistas, from shingle beaches and rugged coastlines to national parks and coastal ports, each stunning scene is full of intriguing detail sure to fire the imagination and make you reach for your colouring pencils. There are absolutely no rules – you can choose any combination of colours you like to bring these images to life. Suitable for children. If you love Hampshire, then you will love colouring it in!

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