Search results for ""Author Andrew Norman""

This is the story, in words and pictures, of Blind Veterans UK, an organization that was founded 100 years ago by Sir Arthur Pearson, who was himself blind, during the First World War, in order to bring hope and practical help to British and Allied servicemen blinded in the service of their country. It also tells of how light from the torch which Pearson lit in 1915 spread to all corners of the earth, to which his beloved St Dunstaners returned, having 'graduated' from the mother organization in Regent's Park - for example, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa. Herewith are accounts of the lives of many St Dunstaner's/Blind Veterans, who each in his or her unique way, triumphed over blindness, together with a unique collection of photographs, including those provided by Blind Veteran's UK, by the Pearson family, and by the families of St Dunstaners throughout the world. And this includes the story of my own grandfather, Thomas Waldin, who was himself a St Dunstaner.

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Agatha Christie was the most famous female crime writers of all time, and yet in December 1926 when she was 35 years old, became the subject of a mystery: her disappearance for a period of eleven days. Questions arose such as why did she abandon her motorcar on such a bitterly cold winter's night with her fur coat inside it? Why did Christie adopt a false name and claim that she originated from Cape Town, South Africa? Why did she not recognise either a photograph of her own daughter or husband when she was finally reunited with him? Some accused her of playing a deliberate hoax on the police in an attempt to generate publicity as a crime writer. Others declared that this was an attempt to embarrass her unfaithful husband Archie (whom she knew was about to leave her) and gain sympathy at the same time. But was there another far more profound reason for her behaviour whereby she became the innocent victim of circumstances completely beyond her control? Norman agrees with the "Fugue state" theory, suggesting that she had no conscious knowledge of her actions. All this and more can be revealed for the first time in Andrew Norman's gripping Agatha Christie: The Disappearing Novelist.

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In the early 1960s a new 'Star' appeared on the pop music scene and burned brightly in the firmament. This was the enchantingly beautiful, French singer-songwriter ('chanteuse'), Francoise Madeleine Hardy. Today, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Francoise can be resurrected, at any moment of her singing career, simply with a flick of a switch on the television's remote control. And there she is, the epitome of French elegance and style! With Francoise, unlike with many of the popular musicians of the time, there was no blaring music or wild gesticulations. She had no need of devices such as these. Her songs are captivating in their own right, particularly those which tell of love, loneliness, and loss. In fact, she has been described as 'the patron saint of the dispossessed and heartbroken'. By why this focus on personal sadness? Could it be that this French icon, beloved by millions throughout the world and who apparently had the world at her feet, was permanently troubled? And if there was something troubling Francoise, could it be love, or to be more precise, unrequited love?

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It was a tradition with the Hardy family, late on Christmas Eve, for the local singers and musicians gather together at the family home at Higher Bockhampton for a glass of cider and a warming by the log fire. Meanwhile, they prepared their music scores and candles, prior to setting out on foot to entertain the locals by serenading them with Christmas carols at their front doors. The musicians included Hardy’s father Thomas (violin), and his grandfather Thomas (cello). Hardy recreated this scene in his novel Under the Greenwood Tree (published in 1872), where ‘Hardy’ became ‘Dewy’, the cottage ‘Lewgate’, and the choir, the ‘Mellstock Quire’. Although Hardy had difficulty in embracing the Christian faith, he adored it’s joyous traditions, reliving them vicariously in Under the Greenwood Tree, and so may we!

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In the year 1900, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was at the height of his success as a qualified doctor, keen sportsman, writer of historical novels, champion of the oppressed and, most notably, the creator of that honourable, fearless, and eminently sensible master-detective Sherlock Holmes. Every new Holmes story was greeted with great anticipation and confidence in the knowledge that, however complex the crime, the supremely intelligent and logical detective would solve it. But in 1916 Conan Doyle surprised his readers by declaring that he believed in spiritualism. And when, in 1922, Doyle published a book in which he professed to believe in fairies, his devotees were nonplussed. How could the creator of the inexorably logical Sherlock Holmes claim to believe in something as vague, esoteric, and unproven as the paranormal? In this fascinating study of the life of the creator of one of the greatest detectives of all time, Dr Andrew Norman traces the origin of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's strange beliefs. Can it be that Doyle's alcoholic father holds the key to the unanswered questions about his son? What was Doyle's involvement in the notorious 'Cottingley Fairies' affair? By delving into medical records and the writings of Doyle himself, Dr Norman unravels a mystery as exciting as any of the cases embarked upon by the great Sherlock Holmes!

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The great singer, Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, USA on 9 April 1898. His father, William was a Presbyterian minister and a former slave; his mother, Maria was also descended from slaves. For Robeson as an African-American, the 'American Dream' was a nightmare. At Rutgers College he was subjected to deliberate violence on the football field; his concerts were disrupted by the Ku Klux Klan; he was hounded by the government on account of his communist sympathies. And yet, it is difficult to think of any human being in the whole of history who was more multi-talented. At Rutgers he was admitted to the very highest academic societies: he subsequently played football in the newly-created NFL; he became acquainted with more than 40 languages, and played the piano. He played 'Othello' at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, and 'Joe' in the film, Show Boat. Yet it was his voice, arguably the finest bass baritone ever to be possessed by a human being, and the message contained in his songs and speeches that echoed right around the world. Here was a message of hope for the poor and underprivileged everywhere, of whatever colour or creed. They too could bring down the 'Walls of Jericho'; gain access to the 'Promised Land'; and finally, be carried to Heaven on a 'Sweet Chariot'! As an author, the challenge for me was to see if I could make contact with any of Paul's descendants and any descendants of his slave owner, who might have unique information about the Robeson family, and to find out where exactly his father, William and mother, Maria had been enslaved. The search was a fruitful one; beyond my wildest dreams, as the reader will discover!

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This is the story of Southern Rhodesia, from a time of its earliest known inhabitants, the Bushmen, to their displacement by the Bantu; the invasion by the Matabele under King Mzilikaze; the advent of the white missionaries; and the arrival of Cecil Rhodes and his Pioneer Column of early settlers, up to the time of independence in 1980. This is the romantic land of the high veld; of teeming game; of the great river Zambezi and the mighty Victoria Falls, and of enormous mineral wealth. This was the country that Robert Mugabe—its future leader—referred to as `the jewel of Africa’. And yet in this land of plenty, tensions in the mid-twentieth century were mounting between its black inhabitants and the whites, including those of British and Afrikaner stock: tensions which would one day boil over into a civil war in which Southern Rhodesia’s neighbours would also become involved. The author has first-hand knowledge of the country, having arrived there with his parents in 1956. He describes what it was like to arrive in a British colony, in the last decades of the colonial era; the wonders of Wankie Game Reserve (now Hwange National Park); a schoolboy expedition to the Eastern Districts in search of the elusive `stone door ruin’; and a personal friendship which developed between himself and his family’s black servant Timot, at a time of racial segregation.

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In many of his poems, the great Dorset poet and novelist Thomas Hardy referred to a certain romantic courtship, a marriage which became progressively more problematical, and finally to a bereavement in which a man loses his wife. So, who was Hardy writing about? The clue is to be found in his early poems, where the names of several locations in North Cornwall are mentioned, this being the very same place which featured in Hardy's courtship of Emma Gifford, who was to become his first wife. The poems raise certain questions. Given that Hardy and Emma gradually drifted apart so that in the end they lived mainly separate lives, albeit under the same roof, why was he so grief-stricken when she died, bearing in mind that their marriage was so unsatisfactory?How did Hardy cope as he passed through the various stages of grief, which he articulated so poignantly and expressively in his poems? These stages are recognized today, thanks to the work of Swiss-US psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler-Ros

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The loss of East Indiaman HCS `Halsewell' on the coast of Dorset in southern England in January 1786, touched the very heart of the British nation. `Halsewell' was just one of many hundreds of vessels which had been in the service of the Honourable East India Company since its foundation in the year 1600. In the normal course of events, `Halsewell' would have been expected to serve out her working life, before passing unnoticed into the history books. However, this was not to be. Halsewell's loss was an event of such pathos as to inspire the greatest writer of the age Charles Dickens, to put pen to paper; the greatest painter of the age J. M. W. Turner, to apply brush to canvas, and the King and Queen to pay homage at the very place where the catastrophe occurred. Artefacts from the wreck continue to be recovered to this very day which, and for variety, interest, curiosity, and exoticism, rival those recovered from Spanish armada galleons wrecked off the west coast of Ireland two centuries previously. Such artefacts shed further light both on `Halsewell' herself, and on the extraordinary lives of those who sailed in her.

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The dinosaurs are a source of endless fascination, and each new generation is inspired and enchanted by images of these wondrous and awe-inspiring creatures that dominated the Earth eons of time ago. The smallest was the size of a chicken; the largest on record, the titanosaur _Argentinosaurus huinculensis_, weighed about 95 tonsfifteen times as much as an African bull elephant (today's largest terrestrial creature). Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for no less than 181 million years: about 600 times longer than _Homo sapiens_ have existed on the planet (_Homo sapiens_ is defined as the primate species to which modern humans belong: the first modern humans having evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago). Today, the consensus is that the dinosaurs became extinct when a meteorite impacted with the Earth 66 million years ago, covering it with a thick layer of soot and throwing up enormous quantities of dust which caused the sky to darken, and photosynthesis on which all terrestrial animals

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The object of this book is not to prove that Adolf Hitler was insane. So much is obvious, both intuitively and from a clinical perspective. Nevertheless the reasons for arriving at such a conclusion will be reiterated and enlarged upon. Instead, the aim of the author is to discover what light Hitler’s associates were able to shed on the personality and modus operandi of the Führer, and to determine the extent to which they (and indeed, Hitler himself) realized that their leader was insane. The aim is also to investigate the cause of his insanity. In this regard, the testimony of the leading Nazis, who were tried for war crimes at Nuremberg during 1945 and 1946, are of particular relevance. These captured Nazis surely realized that in all probability, they would be found guilty, and their lives would terminate at the end of a rope. Surely, therefore, they had nothing to lose by giving the `low down’ on their late Führer, i.e. revealing their innermost thoughts as to his sanity, or otherwise.

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The world continues to be fascinated with Marilyn Monroe who dazzled with her beauty and captivated the hearts of millions, worldwide, with her innocence, charm, generosity, and kindness, and yet, who died tragically at the age of only 36. Hollywood columnist, film critic, and author of `The Fifty Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood’, Ezra Goodman, writing in 1961, the year prior to her death, declared, `The riddle that is Marilyn Monroe has not been solved’. Aside from the fact that Marilyn’s so-called autobiography cannot be relied upon, making sense of her is certainly problematical, not least because in her early years, she was insecure and introspective, and unable even to make sense of herself. There has been much debate, in particular, about the frame of mind that Marilyn was in when, on the night of 5 August 1962, she knowingly or unknowingly took her own life. With his medical background, the author is in a position to shed new light on the enigmatic character of Marilyn Monroe, this fascinating, yet deeply troubled, former Hollywood icon who is regarded, arguably, as the world’s most famous ever movie star.

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The book describes how Lisa Meitner, of Jewish heritage, found herself working as a physicist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin when the Nazis came to power in 1933; how she was hounded out of the country and forced to relocate to Sweden; how German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman continued with the project - on the effect of bombarding uranium (the heaviest known element at the time) with neutrons, a project which Lise herself had initiated, being the intellectual leader of the group. It describes how Hahn and Strassmann, with whom she kept in touch, came up with some extraordinary results which they were at a loss to explain; how Lise, and her nephew Otto Frisch, who was also a physicist, confirmed what they had achieved - the 'splitting of the atom', no less, and provided them with a theoretical explanation for it. This laid the foundation for nuclear power, medical-scanning technology, radiotherapy, electronics, and of course, the atomic bomb - the creation of which filled Lise with horror. It describes the crucial part that Lise played in our understanding of the world of atoms, and how deliberate and strenuous attempts were made to deny her contribution; to belittle her achievements, and to write her out of the history books, even though Albert Einstein said she was even 'more talented than Marie Curie herself'. The author is fortunate and honoured to have been granted several interviews with Lise's nephew Philip Meitner - himself a refugee from the Nazis - who with his wife Anne, provided much valuable information and many photographs.

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Bournemouth was known as a health resort long before it became a holiday destination. W.H. Smith was one of the first patrons of the town’s National Sanatorium for the treatment of chest diseases, including tuberculosis. Here ‘invalids’, including Robert Louis Stevenson and D.H. Lawrence, came to rest and recuperate, assisted by the beneficial breezes from the sea and soothing emanations from the pine trees, for which the area was famous. Others came for different reasons: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted wireless signals across the bay to the Isle of Wight, and Lillie Langtry, whose love letters have only recently been discovered in the attic of a farmhouse in Jersey, spent many years in the area. Bournemouth also attracted many notable twentieth-century visitors and residents, including Winston Churchill and Flora Thompson. From Tregonwell to Tolkien, this book celebrates the town’s founders, and also its notable visitors during the last 200 years. Written by established local author Andrew Norman, this new title is ideal for anyone who wants to explore the tale of Bournemouth and its key figures.

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