Safe Haven Books

Moquette is the carpet-likefabric covering the seats on London’s Tubes, buses, trams and Overground trains– and here is a brilliantly colourful guide to all its patterns. Since this colourful andidiosyncratic little book was first published in 2019 it has gone on to sellover s 13,000 copies over 7 printings, while the London Transport Museum’smoquette merchandise – everything from socks to sofas – has become a must-havestyle accessory. In the meantime, TfL hascontinued to design beautiful new patterns for its new rolling stock – and evento commemorate the 90th anniversary of Victoria Coach Station. Theirappeal is not just London-wide but worldwide: no other city is adorned in sucha vibrant way. This new, revised and expandededition has 16 more pages, new moquettes and features, as well as all thehistoric designs from the London Transport Museum’s archive.

A young Northern woman called May is working inthe fabrics department of a grand London department store when a detectivecomes in, clutching a scrap of fabric. Any idea what this is . . ? May’ssuperiors aren’t interested, so she takes the piece of oddly carpet-like cloth– patterned in pretty yellows, purples and blues – and gets rid of the officerby offering to find out. It turns out to be a piece of railway moquette –but from which line, since no-one appears to have seen this striking pattern before - and how does it solve a murder? May’s investigations takeher out into Metroland, up to the textile mills of Halifax, and finally to the Isleof Wight. Can this plucky young woman solve the Moquette Myster? eats of London – a left-field guide to the colourful array of patterns adorningLondon’s Tube train, bus and train seats since the Thirties – has become an unlikely bestseller, and is already in its sixth printing. The Moquette Mystery is a kind of sequel , as well as a quirky and unique crime novel in its own right.

According to popular myth, Allied prisoners of war during the Second World War spent most of their time escaping. In fact, from Germany to the Far East, they were doing much more remarkable things. Faced with the prospect of years of boredom, these servicemen took up the crafts and professions they'dpursued before their captivity - or set about learning new ones. They formed orchestras(asking the Red Cross to send kettle drums), sat accountancy exams (textbooks,please), dressed up in drag and put on operas. They contested Ashes series, laidout golf courses in the exercise yard. When they needed medical care, their ownsurgeons perfected camp dentistry, fashioned prosthetic limbs. Actors like Clive Dunn and Donald Pleasance, cartoonists like Ronald Searle, artists like Terry Frost - all developed, or even first plied, their crafts while POWs. Little wonderthat one camp in Germany became known as 'the Barbed-Wire University' . . . Acclaimed on firstpublication, this superb book is now reissued with an extensive Afterword.

Though everyone from D. H. Lawrence and DavidBowie struggled with being there, and comedians have made it a byword for theugly and banal, this town halfway between London and Brighton has a remarkablehistory at the centre of things. Eleven archbishops are buried there. London'sfirst airport was there. In the sixties it was a daring experiment infuturistic brutalist architecture. Its contribution to black culture began with our most notable black composer andculminated in the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury. Its BritSchool produced everyone from Adele to Amy Winehouse and Raye. Still want todiss Croydon? Croydonopolistells the amazing story of this much-maligned town, whose only fault was to betoo far ahead of the curve, and always go for broke.