My story opens as I leave Belfast to join the Royal Navy. Crossing the Irish Sea I think back to where it all began. My parents births how they meet marry and raise six children. Their struggle through two World Wars and desperate poverty. My mothers death in 1939 when I was eleven months old. Adopted by my eldest sister and husband and my own unhappy struggle of 13 years to regain my identity.

Adam opens the Holy Bible to the book of Revelations chapter 21. The year is 4013. You might ask how he came to end up two thousand years into the future. This is an exciting story that follows a nuclear submarine across the North Atlantic. A disused Second World War army research base situated in the Highlands of Scotland. An ultra secret meeting held deep in the bowels of the Vatican. It is a fast pace and exciting story that takes the reader on a long and mysterious journey. Follow the ...

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World ...

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 those of us who came from the Seventies, it should be obligatory reading. But younger folk should take a look too, for it beautifully captures a bygone era... Brian Viner, The IndependentThere is a rough edge to his diary that reinforces its immediacy and credibility...a funny and fascinating document... Michael Parkinson, The Daily TelegraphThe flavour of the club [Notts County] is brilliantly captured... when younger first team players still took the bus to training a...

It is the third of September 1939. It is just after half past eleven in the morning. I am fifteen years and sixteen days old. The radiogram at my home, the Woodman Hotel in Clent, has just been switched off, the silence resonates around the room, and a deathly hush has fallen. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, has declared that, despite the best efforts of the politicians of the day to secure 'peace in our time', the inevitable has befallen us; despite pledges to th...

They were the unsung heroines of World War II; the wives, mums and teenage girls, all 'doing their bit' for the war effort, clocking in daily to work in cast munitions factories, helping make the explosives, bullets and war machines that would ensure victory for Britain.It was dangerous, dirty and exhaustive work. They worked round the clock, often exposed to toxic, lethal chemicals. A factory accident could mean blindness, loss of limbs - or worse. Many went home with acid burns, yellow s...

Growing up in Glasgow in the 1930s, Roy Archibald Hall was a natural thief. After moving to London, he became a familiar figure in the capital's underground gay scene. Due to his lucrative criminal career, he led an extravagant lifestyle - though eventually he was arrested and spent the majority of the next two decades of his life, in a cell. Upon release from prison in 1975, he returned to Scotland and ound employment as a butler. He was joined by David Wright, a former lover from prison,...

A Brimingham Backstreet Boyhood is a fascinating, funny and poignant recollection of the experience of growing up in the slums of Nechells and Aston. All the harshness of daily life is remembered here by local author Graham Twist. Despite hard living condition and a distinct lack of money, a strong community spirit prevailed and families and neighbourhoods were close-knit. The womenfolk on particular took great pride in their homes, however humble, and scrubbed th...

This is the true story of a little child called Patrick, who was one of five little brothers that came through, what seemed like a strange world full of bombs dropping, causing big fires and total destruction on a massive scale, every morning I would wake up to see new Wendy houses to play in not realizing someone lived there the day before, and the houses were still burning it was nice and warm, food was so scarce it was rationed so much so we had a plot of land where the family tried to ...

In this bestseller, thirty-six Canadian war brides recount their early lives, their involvement in wartime duties, the magical/funny moments when they met their Canadian husbands-to-be and their journeys from Britain to Canada. The stories convey courage and humour: qualities that carried the war brides through the difficult war years and that contribute to lively reading today. Includes fifty photos.

This is the untold story of Liverpool's children in the Second World War. Whilst everyone is familiar with the tales of evacuees who were rushed out of the cities once the bombs started falling, many of us are unaware that many stayed behind, either by choice or necessity, as the city of their childhood disintegrated and burned around them. In the words of those who experienced the Liverpool Blitz first-hand, we hear of their adventures and misadventures, the fun ...