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About 10 years ago a chance encounter led Bandy to be entrusted with a treasure trove of wartime notes, photos, paintings and ephemera that coalesced themselves into the memoirs of a WW2 RAF Nursing Orderley, LAC Harold Scrafield.A story unfolded through these papers of an older call up, wartime nursing, and travel through the Mediterranean area during the war. Further research found that one of “Scra’s” postings was to a secret medical mission in Yugoslavia. This was Maj Lindsay Rogers’ SOE medical expedition to Titos Partisans organised by Fitzroy Maclean. Of course, this is not described as such in his writings, just as a trip from Bari to Yugoslavia via landing craft, and “escape by HM Gunboat” back to Ancona in Italy. Included inside are many of Scra’s original and unpublished photos, and an amount of his pictures of the partisans both in Yugoslavia and at Bari.Nursing at the Frontline tells of his entry into Carthage, initially sleeping on the hastily dug graves of the German defenders, the story of the units hosts, the White Sisters and the mostly unknown day to day routine of the an RAF Mobile Field Hospital.Scra also finds himself with air operational squadrons, finds time to photograph before and after pictures of the bombing of Monte Cassino, and to deal with death.Now, over 40 years since Scra wrote down his memoirs in long hand, almost 80 since the events he describes and 10 years since Bandy was entrusted with them,  they are published to make for a fascinating read. From Carthage and the White Sisters to the events in Yugoslavia that Scra was involved with. These memoirs take you into the under reported and little known world of the wartime male RAF Nursing Orderly at the sharp end.

Scotland’s history is dramatic, violent and bloody.Being England’s northern neighbour has never been easy.Scotland’s queens have had to deal with war, murder, imprisonment, political rivalries and open betrayal. They have loved and lost, raised kings and queens, ruled and died for Scotland.From St Margaret, who became one of the patron saints of Scotland, to Elizabeth de Burgh and the dramatic story of the Scottish Wars of Independence, to the love story and tragedy of Joan Beaufort, to Margaret of Denmark and the dawn of the Renaissance, Scotland’s Medieval Queens have seen it all.This is the story of Scotland through their eyes.

Before the rise of Rome, the Greeks and Carthaginians were, for centuries, the two most powerful nations of the Western Mediterranean. From the Pillars of Hercules to Sicily and Cyrenaica, the Greeks and the Carthaginians founded cities, created trade routes, interacted with each other as competitors and collaborators, and often went to war. However, the long conflict between the Western Greeks and the Carthaginians has been neglected by modern historians, even though the wars between them are definitely among the greatest, longest, and most dramatic clashes of great powers in history when it comes to the historical breadth and the forces involved. Sotirios Drokalos gives these epic events the attention they deserve.The competition and conflicts between Greeks and Phoenicians in the West began by the time of the first colonizations during the eighth century BCE and the development of the cultural and economic activity of the two cultures. They intensified after the Greek colonies'' consolidation and Carthage''s rise as the most significant Phoenician city and a commercial empire during the sixth century BCE. Especially from the beginning of the fifth century BCE and for the next roughly 200 years, the Western Mediterranean was the field of a ruthless bipolar confrontation between the Greeks of the West and the Carthaginians, marked by the actions of remarkable personalities of the ancient world. This historical clash, apart from the vast and bloody battles, the invasions of one side by the other, the sieges and the mass slaughters, also included elements of cultural interaction and exchange, consisting essentially of a practical test of constitutions, social systems, and political views. Under this prism, studying that tumultuous era could be necessary today to better understand Mediterranean and European historical evolution.

Writings of certain nineteenth and twentieth-century historians continue to colour our perceptions of the past, but is the picture of Katherine Howard painted by some of them necessarily fair? Was she really a neglected young girl set up by an unscrupulous family to enable them to exercise control over Henry VIII, or a secure teenager brought up in the home of her illustrious step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who treated her well? Ultimately, was her untimely death the fault of others or the result of Katherine’s own ill-advised choice? hrough original research and use of primary sources, Queen Katherine and the Howards: A Tudor Family on the Brink of Disaster examines the Howards’ journey from practising law in East Anglia to their elevation to the dukedom of Norfolk by Richard III and, following the Yorkist defeat at Bosworth, their decades of service and loyalty to the fledgling Tudor dynasty.The final weeks of Katherine Howard’s short life, presented as a day-to-day narrative, enables the reader to appreciate how terrifyingly quickly the old duchess and Katherine’s associates, most involved against their wishes, were rounded up and consigned to the Tower for concealing what they knew of her lively past.The last chapters examine how the third Duke of Norfolk, Katherine’s paternal uncle, although surviving the turmoil of the scandal and continuing in his roles as Lord Treasurer and Henry VIII’s leading general, remained highly vulnerable; he and his son eventually fell victim to the king’s deadly paranoia.

Kut: The Death of an Army is the fascinating, yet largely forgotten, story of the British-Indian Army that was besieged in Mesopotamia from 1915 to 1916. It is an expert account of the tragic five-month Turkish siege, in which their enemies essentially outlasted them.The author reveals the day-to-day preoccupations of not only the Anglo-Indian forces, but their enemies the Turks as well as local civilians caught in the chaos. Throughout the campaign, the British were beaten back by the Turks, and the ever-prevailent human suffering of the men, so far away from home in this foreign ground, less than helped the cause: starvation, heavy shelling, inadequate medical supplies and disease were all taking their toll. By the end of the campaign, approximately 30,000 British and Indian soldiers had lost their lives.This informative book will be of interest to anyone wanting a concise and accessible introduction to the conflict and will be essential reading for both students of the First World War, as well as those who have a penchant for military history in general.

One of the most diverse, complex and thus most interesting railway routes in the land. It set out as part of Brunel’s Great Western Railway plan to cover the country in Broad Gauge tracks but, faced with competition from its great rival, the London and North Western Railway, the Broad Gauge never got beyond Wolverhampton and eventually succumbed to the four feet, eight and a half inches proponents. However, by then the GWR had established itself as the principal provider of passenger and freight trains between London and Birkenhead, on the west bank of the Mersey, facing, and on occasions, snarling at, the LNWR opposite. Its most powerful locomotives, the Kings, powered its expresses from 1927 until the end of steam as far as Birmingham and Wolverhampton, whilst Stanier Pacifics worked those between Euston and Liverpool Lime Street. The route passes through the manicured fields and hunting country of the Chilterns, then plunges into that was once the deeply industrial, polluted but still productive Black Country, before emerging into Shropshire, now essentially rural but where the Industrial Revolution may be said to have originated. As the line approaches the important junction of picturesque Shrewsbury, possessor of a station built out over the River Severn and the largest traditionally worked signal box in the world, the Welsh mountains appear on the western horizon. The line then enters the Principality before returning to England at Chester, and the final stretch, along the banks of the Mersey, to journey’s end.

Nestled deep in the Surrey countryside stands the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial. Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, its panels contain the names of nearly 3,500 men and women of the land forces of Britain and the Commonwealth who died in the Second World War and who have no known grave.Among the men and women who names are carved on the memorial are Special Operations Executive agents who died as prisoners or while working with Allied underground movements, servicemen killed in the various raids on enemy occupied territory in Europe, such as Dieppe and Saint-Nazaire, men and women who died at sea in hospital ships and troop transports, British Army parachutists, and even pilots and aircrew who lost their lives in flying accidents or in aerial combat.But the panels also hide a dark secret. Entwined within the names of heroes and heroines are those of nineteen men whose last resting place is known, and whose deaths were less than glorious. All were murderers who, following a civil or military trial, were executed for the heinous offence they had committed. The bodies of these individuals, with the exception of one, lay buried in un-consecrated ground.As Paul Johnson reveals, the cases of the ‘Brookwood Killers’ are violent, disturbing and often brutal in their content. They are not war crimes, but crimes committed in a time of war, for which the offender has their name recorded and maintained in perpetuity. Something that is not always applied in the case of the victim.

Mary Tudor, Henry VIII''s sister, lived a remarkable life. A princess, duchess and queen, she was known as the English Rose for her beauty. Mary Tudor, Queen of France, aims to explore the life of one of the few who stood up to Henry VIII and lived to tell the tale.Henry VIII is well known, but his larger-than-life character often overshadows that of his sisters. Mary Tudor was born a princess, married a king and then a duke, and lived an extraordinary life. This book focuses on Mary’s life, her childhood, her relationship with Henry, her marriages and her relationship with her husbands.Mary grew up in close proximity to Henry, becoming his favourite sister, and later, after her marriage to the French king, she married his best friend, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The events impacting the siblings will be reviewed to examine how they may have changed and shaped their relationship.

The book you hold in your hands is not a standard whisky book. Of course, it does contain information that can be found in countless other books on the subject, such as tasting notes, distillery histories and the general development of the golden liquid we all adore. A whisky book that did not contain such information would be odd indeed, but the emphasis in the following narrative is very much on the darker history of the drink. Whisky noir, if you please.Within these pages can be found cannibals, ghouls and ghosts - unlikely tales that all have one thing in common; whisky. Not just whisky, though, for we are delving deep into the amber gold and turning over a history that has never been told. Until now.Interspersed with whisky quotes, some well-known, other’s more obscure, with this book to hand the reader will never be without an interesting snippet of conversation when sharing a whisky with friends.

In the early hours of 14th June 2017, a fire began in a kitchen on the fourth floor of a twenty-four-storey block of flats in West London. A fire that should have been contained within the original compartment ripped up the outside of the building within minutes. Procedures and systems that had worked for decades failed resulting in the loss of seventy-two lives.Yet this was not the first time a breakdown of compartmentation had caused a loss of life. Just eight years earlier, a fire at Lakanal House in South London had claimed the lives of six people. How then could this happen again? Nor was it just one failure as panels, inadequate fire-stopping, construction of the windows, failure of fire doors and the smoke ventilation system all contributed to the rapid fire spread.This book gives a firefighter’s perspective of the deregulation that caused the tragedy and describes what firefighters were confronted with that June night in 2017. It places that deregulation chronologically alongside a career that spanned three decades including nine years in the training department of the London Fire Brigade.It proposes the causes are far deeper and wider than many think. A systemic deterioration of standards in testing of materials, building control, maintenance, inspections, fire safety and enforcement.

Over thirty years ago Nick Pallant told the story of the struggle to save one of Britain''s best loved heritage railways in Holding the Line – Preserving the Kent & East Sussex Railway (Alan Sutton Publishing). That book concluded its detailed coverage with the partial reopening of the K&ESR in 1974. This new account continues the story over the thirty years which followed.The first 12 chapters mainly rely on secondary sources, particularly the K&ESR''s house journal, the Tenterden Terrier. Later chapters describe the years after he returned as a volunteer following over two decades as an ''armchair'' member and includes his subsequent experiences as a K&ESR employee and Company Secretary.The key points in the story are the extensions to the line which followed the reopening of a short section in 1974. There is also coverage of the scheme to rebuild the ''lost'' section between Bodiam and the national network at Robertsbridge. The growth of passenger traffic is detailed along with all the problems and achievements encountered along the way. The narrative is intertwined with anecdotes of heritage railway life in all its hopes, frustrations, humour and comradeship.Having begun by briefly recalling the K&ESR''s history prior to 1974, the book puts matters into further perspective by concluding with a summary of the major events from 2004 to the third decade of the 21st century.

On 2 November 1952, two teenagers, Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, tried to break into a warehouse in Croydon, Surrey. The police were called and in the minutes that followed, Craig wounded one policeman and shot another dead.At 16, Craig was too young to hang, but Bentley, at 19, was not. Even though he had not fired a shot or carried a gun and was under arrest at the time PC Sidney Miles died, Bentley was deemed to be guilty of murder. The law – of joint felonious enterprise – was unjust and Bentley had an IQ of 66 (the national average is 100). Even so, he was hanged at Wandsworth in February 1953.Nearly forty years later, PC Claude Pain, who was there at the time of the shooting, told a different story. He was on the warehouse rooftop and saw the whole thing. What really hanged Bentley were the words he allegedly used, ‘Let him have it, Chris’. And Pain did not hear those words.M.J. Trow''s Let Him Have It, Chris, published in 1990, was based on Pain’s new evidence. Eight years later, the conviction against Bentley was overturned – not as a result of police corruption, but because of the appallingly partial performance of the trial judge, Lord Goddard.At the time, access to any material relating to the case was denied and only now, with the Freedom of Information Act, can Pain’s testimony be refuted. He was not on the roof. His original deposition is still in The National Archive.This book aims to put the record straight. There was indeed a dreadful miscarriage of justice in 1952 – one of many before and since – and, in a way, Claude Pain was part of it.

London has been a favourite city for film directors to shoot on location for decades, as it houses some of the most iconic British landmarks as well as beautiful historic buildings. With the constant regeneration of the city, there are also inevitably some shifty-looking derelict sites just perfect for despicable criminal activities to be shot. That is what this book is about.Have you ever wondered where Hatchet Harry’s office was in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, where Mitchel gets stabbed in London Boulevard, where the final fight took place between the Millwall and Chelsea gangs in the Football Factory, or where Poirot’s flat was in the iconic TV serie? ou will be able to visit all of these locations using this book. You can also take a tour of your favourite movie’s locations, go on a crime movie pub crawl (although be warned - there are a lot of pubs in crime movies), take a chilled walk through cemeteries and churches or even create your own tours based on postcode.In this book you will find more than 630 locations from 76 crime movies and 12 crime-related TV shows. The book also has more than 100 images taken around the city showing the locations as you will see them today to help you channel your inner Danny Dyer, Poirot or even Kingsman.

This is an original interpretation of domestic patriotism and limitations of wartime mobilization in rural and urban communities of the British Home Front at a local level from 1914-1918. It is a critical examination of the wartime role of the local elite as ''superintendents of patriotism''. The reader is immediately drawn into the riveting human and social interest with an account of ''khaki fever'' leading to ''moral panic'' resulting from the attraction of military uniforms and a perceived need for elite guidance and control while expanding mobilisation. Author is a local writer and commentator, with rare local sources with national relevance, he defines the local elite groups as ''provincial patriots'', a hugely patriotic class who compared their patriotism with that of the local populace. They were the elite ''police-men and women'' of patriotism and who tried to enforce their concept of patriotism and code of ideal conduct in wartime on the local population and to further mobilisation. They served on tribunals set to deal with appeals against enlistment following conscription, and elite pressure could be decisive. These attempts to mobilise for military service met with limited success and ''humanitarian'' mobilisation in the of philanthropy was widespread. The essential national role for agriculture and fishing - very much part of Devon and most of the country - continued as essential and the military contribution continued. The book uses Devon as a case study but reaches out to the whole United Kingdom in total war and with similar examples in Europe, notably France and Germany. It shows the tensions between elites - landed gentry and urban professionals - and the local populations, rural (mostly) and urban. The ''provincial patriots'', if not their families, were above military service age. The study analyses orthodox views about mobilization, dissent, and domestic patriotism on the Home Front in the First World War and roles of local elites. There was, no doubt, flocking to the colours, but also resistance and alternative forms of patriotic contribution.

In The Women Writers'' Revolution, embark on a captivating journey through the dynamic social fabric of Britain from the aftermath of the First World War through to the burgeoning regional writing movement of the 1950s. This illuminating account not only delves into the literary achievements of women writers but also offers a profound exploration of the social realities they navigated.From the early post-war years to the dawn of expanded women''s franchise in 1928, aspiring women writers faced a landscape fraught with both challenges and opportunities. Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, this book vividly portrays the aspirations, struggles, and triumphs of these pioneering women who dared to make their mark in the literary world.Discover the myriad experiences and skills required for success as a woman writer during this transformative era. From navigating the patriarchal structures of publishing to honing their craft in clubs and societies, these women defied societal norms and carved out space for their voices to be heard.As the 1930s unfolded, a wave of documentary and realism provided a platform for depicting the lives of working-class women in politicized ways, captivating audiences through magazines and journals. Against this backdrop of social change, luminaries like Storm Jameson, Winifred Holtby, Dorothy Edwards, and Eleanor Farjeon emerged as trailblazers, leaving an indelible mark on British literature.The Women Writers'' Revolution is not just a literary chronicle but a compelling social history that offers profound insights into the experiences of women aspiring to get into print during a revolutionary period in Britain.

From his offices at Basinghall Street in the City of London, Henry Slater presided over Britain''s best-known private detective agency, king of all he surveyed. In the late Victorian era, and into the twentieth century, his name was synonymous with the Golden Age of private detection; he was a truly modern operator, utilising the press and technology, and creating innovative publicity campaigns to keep his agency in the public eye.One of the key skills of the private detective was the ability to make friends - to infiltrate the lives of individuals, and to get them to trust them with their secrets. Slater, however, would make one mistake: to befriend the wrong person and to entrust them with his secrets. When that friendship ended, competition in the private detective world would lead to a trial so infamous that Winston Churchill himself came to watch proceedings play out at the Old Bailey. The trial would destroy Henry Slater''s career, and expose his real identity.This is the first in-depth study of private detective work in nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, looking at the ''Golden Age'' of private detectives and the work they did. It provides a fascinating look at the type of person who became a private detective, the people who wanted to be their clients - and the crimes that could be committed along the way. This book sheds new light on this profession, building on the author''s previous work on female private detectives in order to enable the reader to gain a better understanding of a job that people of all classes desired to do. But it is also about the career of one man. Sherlock Holmes may have been the most famous fictional private detective, but Henry Slater was, for twenty years, the real star of the private detective world.