Search results for ""Author Martyn R Beardsley""

Whenever vessels have foundered off the coasts of Britain, there have always been those willing to give their all to save those in peril. But in 1823, Sir William Hillary decided that this admirable but impromptu approach was not enough. He believed that many more lives could be saved by the establishment of a national, organised rescue service. His idea was realised the following year. From the days of oar-powered open boats to modern high speed, hi-tech vessels, rescuers have battled storms and unimaginable conditions, risking - and sometimes forfeiting - their own lives in efforts to save others. The most outstanding of these operations led to the awarding of gold medals for gallantry, the RNLI version of the Victoria Cross. Above all, these are human stories. Using information gleaned from archives, contemporary newspaper accounts and genealogical records, this book looks not just at the details of the rescues, but into the people behind them.

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Much has been written about the historical persecution of Catholics. Priests in particular became prime targets during the heightened tensions of the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot. But those whom they relied on for shelter have received little attention until now. The underground network of lay supporters, the Catholic Resistance, mostly comprised courageous women of the great (and sometimes not so great) families of England, and their houses riddled with priest holes. These women fought a cat-and-mouse game with spymasters like Walsingham and Cecil and their spider's web of clandestine informants, knowing that one slip might lead to arrest, torture and execution. The indomitable Anne Vaux and her sister Eleanor provide the focus of this story but there were others, including their niece Frances, who as an 11-year-old boldly confronted armed raiders in search of priests; and Margaret Clitherow of York, arrested during a similar search and ultimately pressed to death. To escape t

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Most people think they know the story of the Gunpowder Plot, and of how a bloody catastrophe was averted at the eleventh hour when Guy Fawkes was caught lurking in the shadows beneath the Houses of Parliament. But what if it wasn't like that at all? How was it that a group of prominent, disaffected Catholics were able to plot for months with apparent impunity? How could they openly rent a house next door to the House of Lords and use it as their base - right under the nose of the leading spymaster of the age, Robert Cecil? How could they have hacked a tunnel towards their target and dispose of tonnes of spoil without alerting anyone - and why is there no record of anyone ever having seen such a tunnel? This book explores the idea that the government was not only aware of what the plotters were up to long before Fawkes' arrest, but that agent-provocateurs may have given them a helping hand - or have even instigated the plot themselves.

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Harry Edward Vickers, aka Flannelfoot, was possibly Britain’s most successful ever burglar. Not financially - he stole cash and low-value items (even, bizarrely, false teeth!). The success was in his hundreds of burglaries spread over many years without being caught. The lives of career criminals are invariably dotted with prison sentences, but thanks to his caution and cunning, Flannelfoot operated night after night, year after year with an impunity which embarrassed the police. In the twenties and thirties, Londers were deserting the overcrowded capital for the burgeoning suburbs of ‘Metroland’. Flannelfoot was equally attracted to these areas, and one of his hallmarks was to steal a bicycle at the scene of his last break-in of the night and cycle to the nearest tube station. Burglars and burglaries are never glamorous, but one reason why the Flannelfoot saga engendered fascination more than fear is that he was never confrontational, never violent, and in fact so stealthy that few ever saw him. His one-man crime epidemic led to Scotland Yard assembling a team more used to solving murders than the plundering of gas meters. After a lengthy and painstaking investigation, a carefully planned night-time surveillance operation involving several teams of officers led to the sensational capture of Flannelfoot. Flannelfoot routinely features in crime anthologies and was the subject of a feature film, but this is the first full biography of the man who became a legend in his own lifetime.

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