Fred Parker

In these recollections of a vintage motorist, the author describes, with some humour, a collection of motoring memories.

The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain

Since its beginnings during WW2, television has assumed a central role in our houses and our lives. Television has created controversy, brought coronations and World Cups into living rooms, allowed us access to 24hr news and media and as shows come and go in popularity, the history of television shows us how our society has changed.

In the middle of WW2, a refugee from the Nazis, Louis de Wohl, made a curious offer to British Intelligence. Based on the widely-held belief that Hitler's every action was guided by his horoscope, de Wohl claimed he could reveal precisely what advice the Fuhrer's astrologers were giving him.

Churchill could see de Wohl's worth for himself and de Wohl was made an army captain and employed to pass detailed astrological readings to the War Office and Naval Intelligence. Did senior officers really take the ancient and arcane practice of astrology seriously? And was de Wohl genuine or merely a charlatan?

The castle has long had a pivotal place in British life, associated with lordship, landholding, and military might, and today it remains a powerful symbol of history. But castles have never been merely impressive fortresses - they were hubs of life, activity, and imagination.

John Goodall weaves together the history of the British castle across the span of a millennium, from the eleventh to the twenty-first century, through the voices of those who witnessed it. Drawing on chronicles, poems, letters, and novels, including the work of figures like Gawain Poet, Walter Scott, Evelyn Waugh, and P. G. Wodehouse, Goodall explores the importance of the castle in our culture and society.

John Constable, the revolutionary nineteenth-century painter of the landscapes and skies of southern England, is Britain's best-loved but perhaps least understood artist.

His paintings reflect visions of landscape that shocked and perplexed his contemporaries: attentive to detail, spontaneous in gesture, brave in their use of colour. What we learn from his landscapes is that Constable had sharp local knowledge of Suffolk, a clarity of expression of the skyscapes above Hampstead, an understanding of the human tides in London and Brighton, and a rare ability in his late paintings of Salisbury Cathedral to transform silent suppressed passion into paint.

Yet Constable was also an active and energetic correspondent. His letters and diaries - there are over one thousand letters from and to him - reveal a man of passion, opinion and discord, while his character and personality is concealed behind the high shimmering colour of his paintings. They reveal too the lives and circumstances of his brothers and his sisters, his cousins and his aunts, who serve to define the social and economic landscape against which he can be most clearly seen. These multifaceted reflections draw a sharp picture of the person, as well as the painter.

James Hamilton's biography reveals a complex, troubled man, and explodes previous mythologies about this timeless artist, and establishes him in his proper context as a giant of European art.

Twenty-three very well-known people from the arts, sport, and business worlds talk about how dyslexia affected their childhood, how they were able to overcome the challenges and use the special strengths of dyslexia to achieve great success in adulthood.

Mike Brace was blinded by a firework at the age of ten. Despite this, he has enjoyed incredible sporting success, and has received a CBE for services to disabled sport. Mike is living proof that if you set your mind to it you can achieve what you strive for.

The declaration of war against Germany in 1939 brought an end to the Golden Age of English cricket. Using unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs, Christopher Sandford recreates that last summer. Few English cricket teams began their first post-war season without holding memorial ceremonies for the men they had lost: He pays homage not only to these men, but to the lost innocence, heroism and human endurance of the age.

In 1967 Peter 'Dougal' Butler became a roadie for The Who and their mercurial genius drummer Keith Moon. Soon he would be Moon's personal assistant, chauffeur, and all-purpose wingman. The ride lasted a tumultuous ten years, ending just prior to Moon's untimely death in 1978. Full Moon is Butler's memoir of that ride. X rated, contains offensive language.

The formative years of Britain’s railway network produced a host of ideas, activities and characters, quite a few of which now seem not only highly unusual, but sometimes little short of ridiculous. 

Weird schemes and designs, extravagant behaviour, reckless competition and larger-than-life characters all featured in the genuine struggle of the railway system to evolve. While the dawning of regulation and common sense brought about more uniform and responsible practices, factors like the weather and the innate complexity of railway operation continued to produce a stream of nonstandard incidents and outcomes, from wild storms to unusual equipment.

This book, by ex-railwaymen Geoff and Ian Body, captures over 150 entertaining snippets, stories, and strange and unusual facts from an ample supply of railway curiosities.

Goodwood has been the home of English sport for centuries. This story of how a small hunting lodge became the iconic location for the globally-renowned Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival events, is set against a panoramic backdrop of English history. At the heart of this vivid portrait is a rich sense of the British heritage that Goodwood embodies.

In the middle of 2019, Rishi Sunak was an unknown junior minister in the local government department. Seven months later, at the age of thirty-nine, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, grappling with the gravest economic crisis in modern history. Michael Ashcroft charts Sunak's ascent from his parents' Southampton pharmacy to the University of Oxford, the City of London, Silicon Valley and the top of British politics.

Neville Cardus, the most revered cricket writer in the world, once described how one majestic stroke-maker 'made music' and 'spread beauty' with his bat. Duncan Hamilton, an award-winning sports writer himself, demonstrates how Cardus changed sports journalism for ever. While popularising cricket he became a star in his own right with exquisite phrase-making, disdain for statistics and a penchant for literary and musical allusions.

Thomas Gresham was arguably the first true wizard of global finance. He rose through the mercantile worlds of London and Antwerp to become the hidden power behind three out of the five Tudor monarchs. A story of adventure and jeopardy, greed and cunning, loyalties divided, mistaken or betrayed, this is a biography fit for a merchant prince. Five hundred years after Gresham's birth, now is the time to reckon up his legacy.

Truck fitter, ace racer, daredevil, speed junkie, all-round 'character', Guy Martin is just a normal guy, driven to succeed by a passion for speed, whether it is on his daily 20-mile cycle to work - his exploits on the track and for television are extra-curricular and he always makes up for his time away - or on his collection of prized motorcycles.

Renowned for a loveable if scattergun personality, Guy is a down-to-earth hero, a modern-day celebrity motivated not by wealth and fame, but by his love of his bikes and trucks. He considers his biggest successes in life are not his race wins or his celebrity status - but his truck MOT pass rates!

Guy Martin: Portrait of a Bike Legend charts his eventful life in pictures and recounts Guy's career in front and away from the spotlight. It is the first illustrated biography of a man who doesn't do things by half - if it's not a challenge to life, limb and sanity, then he isn't interested.

In 1924, Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner's life Hachiko saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925 when Professor Ueno didn't return on the usual train one evening. This is Hachiko's story, as well as an informative look at dog culture in Japan and the history and tradition of the Akita-ken, one of the most ancient, beloved and faithful dog breeds ever.

Monty Roberts is known as 'the man who listens to horses' because of his amazing ability to understand and communicate with them. He has written this book to tell their stories, and to put them centre stage. We are invited not only to get to know the individual horses but to share the immense joy that Monty found with them.

Derek Paravicini is a musical prodigy who has entertained audiences all over the world, from Ronnie Scott's and Buckingham Palace, to Las Vegas; quite a feat for a child who is blind and has learning difficulties. Derek's moving story is told by his teacher, and music psychologist, Dr Adam Ockleford.

Steve Davis was just a rookie from south London, learning how to play from an old book his snooker-obsessed father had given him, when an encounter with Barry Hearn changed his life forever. By the eighties, Steve had helped transform a previously shady sport into a national obsession. His memoir tells of the intrigue behind the scenes and the personal psychology and sacrifice that is required to stay at the top of such an exacting sport.

Jeremy Hardy, who died in February 2019, was perhaps the most distinctive comedian to arise from the 80s Alternative Comedy circuit. This fitting celebration of the brilliant comedian, edited by his wife, Katie Barlow, contains material from his stand-up to his radio monologues, political satire and the joyfully silly gems, as well as tributes from his friends and fellow comedians. It is curated to encompass everything about Jeremy that fans adored.

Sequel to 'The Horse Boy' (9058). Rupert Isaacson tells about his ongoing and extraordinary quest to help his autistic son, Rowan. They travelled from the bushmen of Namibia to the coastal rainforests of Queensland, Australia and finally to the Navajo reservations of the American southwest, where Rowan was transformed.

The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain's best-selling living author*, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. Best known for the Discworld series, his work has been translated into 37 languages, and performed as plays on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. Journalist, comedian and Pratchett fan Marc Burrows delves into the back story of one of UK's most enduring and beloved authors, from his childhood in the Chiltern Hills, to his time as a journalist, and the journey that would take him - via more than sixty best-selling books - to an OBE, a knighthood and national treasure status. The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the result of painstaking archival research alongside interviews with friends and contemporaries who knew the real man under the famous black hat, helping to piece together the full story of one of British literature's most remarkable and beloved figures for the very first time. * Now disqualified on both counts.

Mark Pollock lost his sight at the age of twenty-two. This is the story of how he overcame the odds to rebuild his life and put into practice the axiom that the key to happiness lies in taking control of your own life.

As plans got under way for the Allied invasion of Sicily in June 1943, British counter-intelligence agent Ewen Montagu masterminded a scheme to mislead the Germans into thinking the next landing would occur in Greece. Failure could have had devastating results. Success, however, brought a decided change in the course of the war.

On 7 August 1985, 24-year-old Jeremy Bamber alerted police after apparently receiving a phone call from his father, who told him his sister Sheila had 'gone berserk' with the gun. The family were discovered shot to death at White House Farm in Essex. Drawing on interviews and correspondence with many of those closely connected to the events - including Jeremy Bamber, Carol Ann Lee brings astonishing clarity to a complex and emotive case.

Willie Maryngton was too young to fight in the First World War and too old for the Second. How could he bear to sit at home, hoping that his brother officers would be killed so that he could take their place? In the end Willie does play a vital part in the Allies' eventual victory, in what has become one of the most famous incidents of the war.

For 175 years the British have lived with the railway, and for a long while it was a love affair - the grandeur of the Victorian heyday, the glorious age of steam, the romance of Brief Encounter. Then the love affair turned sour - strikes, bad food, delays, disasters... Parallel Lines tells the story of these two railways: the real railway and the railway of our dreams. Travelling all over Britain, Ian Marchant examines the history of the British railway and meets those who still hold the railways close to their hearts - the model railway enthusiasts, the train-spotters and bashers (a hybrid of train-spotting where the individual - usually male - has to travel behind a certain locomotive in order to catalogue it), the steam enthusiasts. He swaps stories with commuters at the far reaches of London suburbia, he travels to deserted railway museums, and smokes cigarettes on remote, windswept stations in the furthest corners of Scotland, turning his characteristic eye for character, humour and surprise to one of the great shared experiences of the British nation.

The extraordinary story of one of the RAF's most notable Second World War bomber pilots. Alec Cranswick earned the distinction of having flown the largest number of operations during the Second World War. In 1944, piloting a Lancaster bomber on his 107th bombing operation, Squadron Leader Alec Cranswick failed to return.

Operation Ottawa was the cold case detection of John Cooper for two double killings: the Scoveston Manor murder of Richard and Helen Thomas in 1985 and the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path murder of Peter and Gwenda Dixon in 1989. Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Wilkins tells how he used cutting edge forensic techniques to prove Cooper's involvement in the crimes, and how the TV programme Bullseye led to a crucial identification.

When blind runner Simon Webb was training for his first London marathon, aware that he wouldn’t be able to admire the sights of the city, he researched a few facts about some of the points of interest around the 26.2 mile course. He focuses on London’s history, culture and sport, people and pubs – lots of pubs.

In this continuing Terry Pratchett story (with intervening chapters from Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart) our authors join forces again to see just what happens when the wizards meddle with history, in a battle against the elves for the future of humanity on Earth. Continued from 13199.

Guy and Juliet re-mortgaged their house and bought a yacht. Her name was Forever. The plan? To pick her up from her mooring off the coast of Venezuela, and sail around the West Indies. But far from being the idyllic escape they'd envisaged, the journey forced Guy and Juliet to draw on reserves of courage and endurance they never knew they had.

A fascinating account of the WWII evacuations when children were sent away to live with complete strangers in the USA and Canada. The author was evacuated aged 8 to America along with his younger brother. It is a tale that is at times moving, often humorous, evoking an authentic picture of life and attitudes during wartime.

Warwick Davis was born with a very rare form of dwarfism, but this has not stopped him having a successful film career and happy family life. He writes with humour and humanity of the problems he has faced and the success he has achieved.

Sir Edmund Hillary described Douglas Mawson’s epic and punishing journey across 600 miles of unknown Antarctic wasteland as ‘the greatest story of lone survival in polar exploration’.

This Accursed Land tells that story; how Mawson declined to join Captain Robert Scott’s ill-fated British expedition and instead lead a three-man husky team to explore the far eastern coastline of the Antarctic continent.

But the loss of one member and most of the supplies soon turned the hazardous trek into a nightmare. Mawson was trapped 320 miles from base with barely nine days’ food and nothing for the dogs.

Eating poisoned meat, watching his body fall apart, crawling over chasms and crevices of deadly ice, his ultimate and lone struggle for survival, starving, poisoned, exhausted and indescribably cold, is an unforgettable story of human endurance.