Amberley Publishing strana 9 z 20

Why were there so many missing in the First World War? And what happened during the Second World War and in the other wars of the twentieth century? Both world wars produced casualties on an unprecedented scale. The missing were the victims of increasingly mechanised warfare. One minute they were there, the next they had vanished, vaporised by a shell.Known Unto God describes the exhaustive hunt for missing servicemen. It looks at how individual families reacted to the shocking news that their husband, son or brother was missing and how many mothers and wives could never accept the loss of their loved ones.This book reveals the bureaucratic process behind the hunt for the missing and demonstrates how vital information gathered from the Red Cross and other sources was carefully pieced together to discover the fate of these men.Simon Fowler considers the way we memorialise the missing through the Cenotaph, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, the Menin Gate, Thiepval and many other monuments to the missing across the world.

Cheshire contains some of the earliest inland saltworks, industrial canals, and purpose-built mechanised textile mills in Britain. The region’s industrial story covers 2,000 years from the Romans to the Victorians and beyond. Drawing upon archaeological excavations over the last fifty years, this book looks at the physical remains of Cheshire’s chief industries, salt, textiles, metal working, and transport, from its Roman beginnings to the area’s role as the centre of Britain’s silk industry in the nineteenth century. Michael Nevell describes the excavation of Cheshire’s internationally important industrial archaeology sites showing how this archaeological work has helped the study of not only the salt industries of Nantwich, Middlewich, and Northwich, but Chester’s role as a port, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Bridgewater Canal, the first long-distance industrial canal, and its port at Runcorn. The area’s largest industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, silk and cotton spinning, developed in eastern Cheshire and this area became Britain’s silk-manufacturing centre. The excavation of these textile mills, salt works, and transport networks reveals the impact of industrialisation on the landscape and people of the area, and Cheshire’s important role in the Industrial Revolution.

For centuries, London and its citizens relied on horses, donkeys, and mules to provide the necessities and luxuries of life. There was scarcely an event or activity in England’s capital that did not in some way require equine support. A twelfth-century description of London’s most famous horse fair, Smithfield, shows the importance of the pack horses, swift palfreys, powerful war horses and draught mares and their foals to the economy and social life of the city. Horses were still on sale at Southall Market in the early years of the twenty-first century. In Chaucer’s day, pack horses, as well as mounted knights, squires and merchants clattered over London Bridge on their way to and from far-off places. In Tudor and Stuart times, horses displayed the power and authority of monarchs, mayors, and senior clergy. In the eighteenth century, the Macaronis mounted on pretty ponies showed off in London’s parks. Meanwhile, malt, dray, and draught horses continued to serve all classes of society. There were so many hard-working equines that people scarcely noticed their existence. Nineteenth-century London was still a city of the horse, despite the arrival of steam power. Horse-drawn coaches continued to pour into London inns until the 1840s and at the end of the century horse-drawn omnibuses, cabs, and trams were as necessary to London’s workers and commuters as the railways. Even today, horses can still be found working on London’s streets and in its parks. This is their story.

The National Park Bannau Brycheiniog, formerly known as the Brecon Beacons, founded in 1957 is a hugely popular area of South Wales. Not only does it cover mountainside and moorland, forestry and farmland, but it also includes a number of historic settlements in and around its border, including Brecon, Hay-on-Wye and Abergavenny. Visitors come for its landscape, flora and fauna, outdoor activities and attractive towns and villages. Alongside the well-known areas are many tucked away and little known places in the park and the history of the area also has its own special folk tales.50 Gems of Bannau Brycheiniog (The Brecon Beacons) explores the many places and their history that make this unique area so special, including natural features, towns and villages, buildings and places of historical interest. Alongside justly famous attractions, others will be relatively unknown but all have an interesting story to tell.

For many enthusiasts, the Western Region of BR was the home of the hydraulics, their following reaching almost cult status towards their later years. Even the Class 50s which replaced them created their own following and are now part of history. The images in this book represent not just hydraulic power but the changing scene on the Western Region during the 1970s and early to mid-1980s. In many locations the semaphore signals which were synonymous with the region are gone, with even Brunel’s main line completely transformed and electrified. Plenty of nostalgic rail-blue-era images of long-lost motive power, from front-line locomotives to first-generation DMUs, main- and branch-line scenes as well as depots are included, representing the whole of the Western Region from London to Cornwall, South Wales and north to Worcester. Garry Stroud presents a vibrant selection of nostalgic images from a time when hydraulic motive power was giving way to newer forms of traction and eventually HSTs.

A key part of the Great Western Railway’s network was the main line to the North through Birmingham. From London, this route including the Princes Risborough cut-off joined Didcot, Oxford, Banbury and Birmingham, and then Wolverhampton, Chester and Shrewsbury, opening up destinations in the North and North West. The GWR also ran services on its joint lines with the London & North Western Railway and the Great Central Railway, to reach Birkenhead and York. In this book author, modeller and railway historian Robert Hendry draws on his extensive collection of historical images to present a photographic portrait of this significant part of the Great Western Railway through the years.

Railways have been around for about 200 years and while the majority have flourished and are still in existence today, many no longer remain. Some of these have completely disappeared, especially those associated with the transportation of industrial commodities such as coal. In some instances, passenger railways have not faired much better than their industrial counterparts and the Beeching Report led to the closure of 2,300 railway stations and over 5,000 of track miles in Britain in the 1960s. When railways are closed their infrastructure such as track, station buildings, signal boxes etc. are generally removed and over time the land is repurposed for houses, retail footpaths, cycleways or simply returned to open land. However, this is not always the case and sometimes the removal of the railway infrastructure is not undertaken in a diligent manner resulting in items such as track, buildings or redundant equipment being left behind. In addition, railway artifacts such as locomotives or rolling stock may be deliberately left in situ to mark the history of what has gone before.Steve Liptrot offers a fascinating pictorial history of what railways have left behind in Britain and a selection of European countries.

For five seasons from 2009 to 2014 Luton Town FC was marooned in non-League football. A club that had earlier enjoyed several spells in the English game’s top flight had slumped to this low point due to mismanagement, financial irregularities and crippling points deductions.After repeated bouts of play-off pain in the Conference, a return to the League was secured in 2014 – the start of an astonishing upward journey that saw Luton soar to the Premier League in only nine years. This book chronicles, month by month, the miraculous progress during those years as this club, with its tiny budget, achieved something unique in football in less than a decade.A nail-biting penalty shoot-out victory in the 2023 Championship play-off final at Wembley meant Luton won the right to host some of the world’s richest clubs, in arguably the world’s most competitive league, at their humble, ancient and tiny Kenilworth Road ground.Rob Hadgraft, a season-ticket holder at Luton for five decades, tells the story that would be widely acknowledged in the media as ‘football’s greatest fairytale’, ‘miraculous’ and ‘against all odds’. He tells it from the viewpoint of a committed follower, mixing humour with the more serious background aspects of the journey.

Somerset is renowned for its churches, many built on the wealth of the wool industry in this area in the Middle Ages. Bath, Glastonbury and Wells were powerful ecclesiastical centres in this period, but there are many fascinating and beautiful churches to be found throughout the county’s towns and villages, whether small and humble, grand or unusual. The churches are to be found in a wide variety of landscapes, from the Mendip and Quantock hills, Exmoor, the Bristol Channel coastline and the edge of Bristol, to the flat marshy areas of the Levels and agricultural river valleys. The distinctive Somerset church towers can be seen throughout the county and often a wealth of mediaeval carving welcomes the visitor. Later buildings from the Georgian and Victorian era show the changing identity of areas where industry developed and population grew into today’s many faces of Somerset.In Churches of Somerset, author Phil Draper explores a cross-section of historical churches throughout the county, both the well known and those waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of Somerset over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this splendid county in England.

‘The Empire is the Master [in the Far East] and they are the guests,’ Yamagata Aritomo, the chief imperial strategist in Tokyo, once remarked.From the early 1900s, Imperial Japan aimed for hegemony in the Far East. During this time, resourceful and independent-minded Japanese spymasters focused on acquiring intelligence of advanced naval and aviation technology.In London, the War Office and the Foreign Office opted for an alliance treaty with Japan. Nonetheless strategists soon realised that Tokyo was antagonizing Britain in the Far East. The British Empire was deemed weak and overextended. Officials believed that avoiding confrontation with Japan was the only choice, and so Britain condoned Japanese aggression in China. Indeed, pro-Japanese bias influenced official policy at the highest levels.Only the spymasters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Admiralty and the Security Service, recruiting spies across the Far East, were able to reveal Japan’s hostile intent towards the British Empire. In Empires of Spymasters, Panagiotis Dimitrakis tells us how they did it.

For a relatively ephemeral feature of the landscape of those English uplands made of porous chalk and limestone, the artificial watering sites for livestock known as dew ponds have been the subject of a great deal of legend, outright misinformation, experimentation and scientific research. This generated much published material from the late 1700 onwards, the key elements of which are highlighted in this book. These parts of the farmed landscape are of uncertain age, and for centuries they had been essential water sources for the great flocks of sheep that grazed the upland pastures. Today, a well-watered dew pond is an attractive aspect of the landscape, and they are increasingly recognised as valuable sources of wildlife diversity. David Riviere explores the history, construction and restoration of dew ponds as well as their representation in myth and art in this introduction to an increasingly forgotten feature of the country’s landscape heritage.

The Mersey Docks & Harbour Board was created in 1858, becoming a limited company in 1972. There followed a programme of investment in the facilities to be completed and the building of a new dock and terminals at Seaforth, Liverpool and Birkenhead. The carriage of goods in containers changed the way cargo was carried and the type and design of ships using ports around the world. By 2000 new facilities were being developed for the grain and timber trades. The scrap-metal trade took over many of the old berths and a new steel terminal was opened. The year 2000 was a time of transition for the port and the type of ships required to carry cargo and passengers. Roll-on/roll-off cargo to Ireland rose by a third in 2000, a new river terminal was built and new ferries were introduced. Specialist ships are employed on the new business and a cruise terminal was opened in 2008, which can accommodate the largest vessels to enter the Mersey. The River Mersey now welcomes every type of ship trading around the world, including dry-cargo, bulkers, oil tankers, tugs, coastal vessels, cruise ships and vessels arriving at Cammell Laird for annual overhaul, repair or conversion. This book describes the decline in areas of trade with the consequent loss of traditional ships and the development of new business and ships specially designed and equipped to deal with the changing pattern of trade across the world.

Class 126 diesel multiple units were introduced to Scotland from 1956. Initially, they were diagrammed to work between Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street. In 1959, a second batch was introduced with slight design changes, and these were used on the Glasgow St Enoch to Ayr and Stranraer Harbour workings. The Edinburgh units were always based at Leith Central and the later builds were based at Ayr Depot. They became known as Inter City units as they initially connected up Edinburgh and Glasgow with faster end-to-end journey times compared with their steam forerunners. The Ayr-based units were later moved to work from Glasgow Central. Both fleets have worked charters on to the West Highland Lines and other routes. This book illustrates the class from introduction in the mid-1950s until withdrawal from British Rail in 1983. Four coaches have subsequently been preserved at the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway.With a wealth of previously unpublished images, this book will delight Scottish rail enthusiasts both young and old.

From humble beginnings as slaves in Egypt, the Mamluks trained as soldiers and rose in status to seize control of the largest empire in Islam. They ruled over Egypt and Syria for over two centuries. They saved the region from devastation by the Mongols and expelled the last of the Crusaders from the Holy Land. The Mamluks presided over the last flowering of the culture of medieval Islam, when scientific and artistic achievements were at least preserved, if not greatly advanced.The first Mamluks were Turks, chosen for their reputed pugnacious nature. A Turk and his horse always made a formidable combination, according to writings from the early period of the Arab conquests. As author John Brunton explains, ‘The tibaq system made soldiers of slaves. As a hybrid of the harsh nomadic tribesman and the well-trained knight, a Mamluk faris (cadet trooper) could certainly produce results.’Conquest by the Ottomans of 1517 may have ended the Mamluke Sultanate, but the Mamluks themselves continued as a powerful military class until modern times. They fought Napoleon when he invaded Egypt in 1798. Their alleged end in 1811 was as bloody as the rest of their history, but there is even evidence of the Mamluks continuing longer, possibly until the later nineteenth century.

Chester’s history goes back 2,000 years, from the Romans to recent times, and in the course of the centuries the city has witnessed many dark deeds and events. Chester’s historical buildings and streets were part of this history and in this book local writer and tourist guide David Atkinson investigates the darker side of Chester’s past. With help from experts in their fields, he tells stories concerning Chester Cathedral’s stones, the famous Rows and pubs and churches in the city, with ghosts, poltergeists and an apparent visit by the devil. The entertainment in the amphitheatre played an often brutal role in Roman Chester, public executions were held in the city with heads displayed on spikes, the local museum has a spooky side to its doll collection, and plague and pestilence were regular visitors. These tales and many more will be of interest to all those who are visiting Chester for the first time, have lived in the city or know it well. Join David for a walk on the dark side.

The North Staffordshire Coalfield is concentrated around the Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-Under-Lyme areas, with a small outlying area around Leek and Cheadle. During the Industrial Revolution coal from the area fired the Potteries ceramics and iron industries. At its peak, 50 pits were working in the area but as the coal industry declined nationally, pits gradually merged or closed in the postwar years. Closures accelerated following the Miners’ Strike in the 1980s and the last deep mine, Silverdale, closed in 1998. Today, most of the sites have been reclaimed, including a nature reserve at Chatterley Whifield.This fascinating selection of old and new images of the North Staffordshire Coalfield will be essential reading for all those who know the area or have family members who worked in the local coal mining industry.