Following Railway Boy and Railway Man Mitchell Deaver now describes in Transatlantic Railwayman his adventures as a former British Railways employee thrust into the midst of American railroading. Mitchell Deaver begins a new career in 1989 with the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, where he learns the rudiments of American railroading: hand signals, radio use and how to couple and uncouple freight cars. Hundred-car coal trains are an important aspect of work on this short line. In 1994 M...

Rural North Yorkshire in the 1950s is the setting for Railway Boy, a heart-warming and nostalgic journey of exploration that describes a young boy's love for railways and describes the surprising lengths to which he would go in pursuit of that passion. Rich in period detail, the autobiographical novel begins with the family of author Mitchell Deaver uprooting from a small market town and moving to a village through which runs a railway line. Mitchell Deaver, eight years old, discovers a si...

Railway Man begins with author Mitchell Deaver paying a nostalgic visit to Bickle signal box, base of boyhood adventures described in his first book Railway Boy. Shortly after, he leaves rural Yorkshire for life in the big cities. It is 1968. Railway Man describes the emotionally devastating draw-down of steam traction on British Railways. Three steam sheds remain: Carnforth, Lostock Hall and Rose Grove. The end comes when the last steam train runs on 11th August. The total steam ban is un...

Remembering the romance of a bygone era, with all the dirt, grime and risks the job entailed! Fast train fireman Ken Issitt worked on the footplate from the late 1940s to 1960, experiencing firing some of the greatest locomotives from the Flying Scotsman to Coltimore and Blink Bonney. The work was hard and conditions were tough but little did Ken know at the time that he was experiencing the last years of steam; he would never have imagined the romantic associations the pe...

As Britain moved from austerity to prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s, it became clear that British Railways needed to modernise its equipment and rationalise its network if it was to hold its own in the face of growing competition from road and air transport.After attempting to maintain pre-war networks and technology in the 1950s, a reversal of policy in the 1960s brought line closures, new liveries and the last breath of steam, as Dr Beeching and his successors s...

Southern England. Late summer 1940. The nation is fighting for its very survival and the Luftwaffe's aerial offensive is unrelenting. All that lies between invasion and salvation for Britain is the 'thin blue line' of RAF Fighter Command and its pilots.This newly illustrated anniversary edition of Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot reveals what it was like to fly a fighter plane in the Battle of Britain. Who were the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots of 1940? H...

What was it really like to be at sea in the Navy with Nelson? Were the sailors excited about the Battle of Trafalgar, or suffering scurvy? How did life compare between those of a high range, and those who served them? What were conditions like below the decks, living among the rats and the filth? How did you cope if you suffered from sea sickness? This book takes you back in time to see, hear, smell and taste what life was really like for these brave sailors at sea.

The Sunday Times BestsellerA glorious insight into Britain over the last 150 years – its history, landscape and people – from the window of Britain’s many and magnificent railway journeys.Inspired by George Bradshaw, a 19th-century cartographer who mapped Britain’s railways as they sprung up around him, Charlie Bunce and Michael Portillo take a journey along nine classic British railway routes and surround themselves with the history, the charm and the people at the heart o...

My name is Leslie Joy (Les to my friends), and I was born on the 16th March 1923 in Bradford, Yorkshire. This is my true story of how at the age of 19 I joined the RAF, fell in love with a Tiger Moth, got my wings and flew as a Lancaster Bomber pilot in World War II, and survived just!

The book is an account of a journey using local service buses from Lands End in the deepest south west of England up to John OGroats in the far north east of Scotland. With the issue of free bus passes to all British citizens over the age of sixty, the author decided to maximise the use of his in undertaking this 1,230 mile trip. By way of being different, the author decided to take with him, his dog Archie, a Jack Russell / cairn terrier cross, as he too enjoys travelling. The book is not...

If you want to build a model railway but feel constricted and frustrated because you only have a very limited amount of space available, then this is the book for you. The author demonstrates that a railway modeller need never be 'stuck for space', and shows the reader how to design and construct a rewarding layout in even the smallest of spaces. He emphasizes that once you have found a home for your layout, be it in a garden shed, a spare room, a bookcase or even the top of an ironing boa...

Do you remember Pathé News? Taking the train to the seaside? The purple stains of iodine on the knees of boys in short trousers? Knitted bathing costumes? Then the chances are you were born in or around 1950.To the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age. But for those born around then, this era of childhood feels like yesterday. This delightful collection of photographic memories will appeal to all who grew up in this post-war decade; they include p...