'I Was a Teenage Devil - But I'm Alright Now!' is a true story. It is the continuing saga of Thomas, our protagonist from 'Surviving the Battleground of Childhood', and follows him into the British army. At just fifteen years of age he swaps the coalmining communities for Aldershot: home of the British Army. In order to escape the environment that bound him, our intrepid survivor joins the Parachute Regiment (the 'Red Devils') as a junior leader.The story continues as he struggles ...

The explosive sequel to the bestselling PATHFINDER.For the first time ever an elite British operator tells the gruelling story of his selection into the Pathfinders - Britain's secret soldiers. Pathfinder selection is a brutal physical and psychological trial lasting many weeks. It rivals that of the SAS and takes place over the same spine-crushing terrain, in the rain-and-snow-lashed wastes of the Welsh Mountains. For two decades no one has been able to relate the...

For three decades one of the most secretive units in the British military has been a mystery force known as X Platoon.Officially there was no X Platoon. The forty men in its elite number were specially selected from across the Armed Forces, at which point they simply ceased to exist. X Platoon had no budget, no weaponry, no vehicles and no kit - apart from what its men could beg, borrow or steal from other military units.For the first time a highly decorated veteran of this...

It's 1985, The Smiths are in the charts and Maggie Thatcher is in No10. Eddy Nugent's in Manchester, he's 16 and he's slowly going out of his mind with boredom. So what does he do? He joins the British Army.Overnight, he leaves the relative sanity of civvie street and falls headlong into the lunatic parallel universe of basic training: a life of press ups, boot polish and drill.Gradually, he finds his feet and settles down to life as a soldier. There's still plenty of press...

The long awaited story of one of Britain’s greatest comic legends.'Some people walk on stage and the audience warms to them. You can't explain it, and you shouldn't try. It's an arrogant assumption to say you 'decide' to become a comedian. The audience decides for you.' Eric Sykes, December 2001From his early days writing scripts for Bill Fraser and Frankie Howerd through decades of British radio and television comedy – ‘Educating Archie’, ‘Sykes And A …’, ‘Curry and Chips’...

''For the first time in my young military career, those recruitment posters showing lads windsurfing and relaxing on the beach swam into my mind s eye without a trace of irony.''Young soldier Eddy Nugent can't believe his luck. It's 1991, and he's been posted to tropical Belize - where he works seven hours a week and spends the rest of his time drinking, swimming in the Caribbean and getting to know the local ladies.It's all a far cry from the rainy Manchester streets where ...

THE HIT BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE NEW FILM‘After the world died we all sort of drifted back to school. After all, where else was there to go?’Lee Keegan’s fifteen. If most of the population of the world hadn’t just died choking on their own blood, he might be worrying about acne, body odour and girls. As it is, he and the young Matron of his boarding school, Jane Crowther, have to try and protect their charges from cannibalistic gangs, religious fanatics, a bu...

'TOUGH, TOUCHING… IT'S A RIGHT GOOD READ' - DAILY TELEGRAPHAt 16, Mark Time wants to become either a geologist or a Royal Marines Commando. So which does he choose? Despite his love of basalt, he chooses the career that teaches him how to kill... and sh*t in plastic bags.Knowing his weak body will have to shape up to complete thirty weeks of commando training, Mark prepares for the Royal Marines by sleeping in his shed wearing only plastic bags. He braves pain by ordering his mate to attac...

Lachlan Dunn lifted his eyes from the book he was trying to read. He studied his uncle in the dim lamplight. "What you all done up for?"Thaiter grinned and finished tucking his clean shirt into his trousers. "It's me birthday. I'm off ta the Cosmopolitan for a couple.""Your birthday?" Lachlan laughed."You'll note. I'm done right. Clean and shaven." Thaiter did a spin and twinkled his eyebrows. "I might get lucky tonight."— from "Done Right" by Donna Fieldhouse

Dog Soldiers tells the story of two brave young ‘dog soldiers’ (Army bomb dog handlers), killed in action in Afghanistan with their dogs by their side, through the inspirational words of their mothers.Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe and Lance Corporal Liam Tasker were both dog lovers from boyhood and went on to do the job they had always wanted to do. Through the soldiers’ mothers – Lyn Rowe and Jane Duffy – the book will take the reader on a journey and a celebration of the young men’...

...a memoir that is at once dramatic, disturbing, sexually charged, and often very funny, but ultimately a moving portrait of a man who has found the inner strength to overcome....- Paul Ham, international journalist and authorThis is a complex, virtuoso analysis of an Australian life written by an unabashed and unrepentant authoran acidic dissection of the role that genes and environment have in developing a persons character, as well as a sauntering chronicle of s...

A book of humorous stories with a distinctive Kiwi flavour, both true and definitely not true, compiled through Radio Pacific, a leading radio talkback station based in Auckland.A book of humorous stories with a distinctive Kiwi flavour, both true and definitely not true, compiled through Radio Pacific, a leading radio talkback station based in Auckland. Spinning a good yarn is a time-honoured tradition in this country, and we've all heard some great ones. they used to be the favour...