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When Helen was 20, she met Garry Newlove at a local disco. They married in 1986 and had three daughters.…
On 10 August 2007, Garry was brutally beaten by a gang of youths outside the family home in Warrington. He died two days later. It was an act of violence that shocked the nation and would have a profound impact on the lives of Helen and her children.After the ordeal of a ten-week trial and the murder conviction of three youths, Helen held a press conference, giving a speech that attracted national media attention and propelled her into the role of a campaigner for victims’ rights and against the lawlessness that blights so many of our towns and cities.In 2010, Helen was appointed a seat in the House of Lords among some of the most powerful and influential people in the country. Today, she is Baroness Newlove of Warrington, a tireless campaigner against antisocial behaviour and for the rights of victims and witnesses.In this engaging memoir, Helen recounts how her family was shattered by Garry’s murder and how good unexpectedly came out of evil. Her remarkable story is not one of politics and committees; it is about real people and the impact that crime has on us all.The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave
By Mary Prince. 2004
The History of Mary Prince (1831) was the first narrative of a black woman to be published in Britain. It…
describes Prince's sufferings as a slave in Bermuda, Turks Island and Antigua, and her eventual arrival in London with her brutal owner Mr Wood in 1828. Prince escaped from him and sought assistance from the Anti-Slavery Society, where she dictated her remarkable story to Susanna Strickland (later Moodie). A moving and graphic document, The History drew attention to the continuation of slavery in the Caribbean, despite an 1807 Act of Parliament officially ending the slave trade. It inspired two libel actions and ran into three editions in the year of its publication. This powerful rallying cry for emancipation remains an extraordinary testament to Prince's ill-treatment, suffering and survival.The Hurricane Girls: The inspirational true story of the women who dared to fly
By Jo Wheeler. 2018
Celebrating the lives of the magnificent women, the ATA girls, who courageously flew Spitfires, Tiger Moths, Lancaster Bombers and many…
other aircraft during World War Two.These extraordinary women, Mary Ellis, Jackie Moggridge and Pauline Gower are just a few of the remarkable stories inside . . . Since the invention of aeroplanes, women have taken to the skies. They have broken records, performed daredevil stunts and faced such sexism and prejudice that they were effectively barred from working as pilots.That changed in the Second World War. Led by firebrand Pauline Gower, an elite group of British women were selected as ferry pilots to fly for the Air Transport Auxiliary. They risked their lives flying munitions and equipment for the boys on the front line.Flying day and night without radio; dodging storms, barrage balloons and anti-aircraft fire; and with only a map, compass and their eyesight to guide them, they navigated the treacherous wartime skies.____________The Hurricane Girls is the thrilling, moving and inspirational story of the female air force who once ruled our skies.Henry III: A Simple and God-Fearing King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Stephen Church. 2017
Henry III was a medieval king whose long reign continues to have a profound impact on us today. He was…
on the throne for 56 years and during this time England was transformed from being the private play-thing of a French speaking dynasty into a medieval state in which the king answered for his actions to an English parliament, which emerged during Henry's lifetime. Despite Henry's central importance for the birth of parliament and the development of a state recognisably modern in many of its institutions, it is Henry's most vociferous opponent, Simon de Montfort, who is in many ways more famous than the monarch himself. Henry is principally known today as the driving force behind the building of Westminster Abbey, but he deserves to be better understood for many reasons - as Stephen Church's sparkling account makes clear.Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a highly collectible formatHenry II: A Prince Among Princes (Penguin Monarchs)
By Richard Barber. 2014
Henry II (1154-89) through a series of astonishing dynastic coups became the ruler of an enormous European empire. One of…
the most dynamic, restless and clever men ever to rule England, he was brought down both by his catastrophic relationship with his archbishop Thomas Becket and his debilitating arguments with his sons, most importantly the future Richard I and King John. His empire may have ultimately collapsed, but in Richard Barber's vivid and sympathetic account the reader can see why Henry II left such a compelling impression on his contemporaries.Henry I: The Father of His People (Penguin Monarchs)
By Edmund King. 2018
'To be a medieval king was a job of work ... This was a man who knew how to run…
a complex organization. He was England's CEO'The youngest of William the Conqueror's sons, Henry I came to unchallenged power only after two of his brothers died in strange hunting accidents and he had imprisoned the other. He was destined to become one of the greatest of all medieval monarchs, both through his own ruthlessness, and through his dynastic legacy. Edmund King's engrossing portrait shows a strikingly charismatic, intelligent and fortunate man, whose rule was looked back on as the real post-conquest founding of England as a new realm: wealthy, stable, bureaucratised and self-confident.Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (Volume 2): 1938-43
By Chips Channon. 2021
The second volume of the remarkable, Sunday Times bestselling diaries of Chips Channon.'A masterpiece - a time machine that transports…
the reader back to British politics and high society at the end of the 1930s.' Robert Harris'The uncensored, unvarnished thought of one of the 20th century's greatest diarists. - Best Biographies of the Year, Telegraph'An unrivalled guide to the social and political life of Britain in the first half of the 20th century.' Books of the Year, The Times'Fascinating.' New Statesman'Never a dull day, never a dull sentence.' Daily Mail_______________________________________________This second volume of the bestselling diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon takes us from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement, when the Prime Minister so admired by Chips was credited with having averted a general European conflagration, through the rapid unravelling of appeasement, and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War. It closes with a moment of hope, as Channon, in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, reflects: 'The war must be more than half over.'For much of this period, Channon is genuinely an eye-witness to unfolding events. He reassures Neville Chamberlain as he fights for his political life in May 1940. He chats to Winston Churchill while the two men inspect the bombed-out chamber of the House of Commons a few months later. From his desk at the Foreign Office he charts the progress of the war. But with the departure of his boss 'Rab' Butler to the Ministry of Education, and Channon's subsequent exclusion from the corridors of power, his life changes - and with it the preoccupations and tone of the diaries. The conduct of the war remains a constant theme, but more personal preoccupations come increasingly to the fore. As he throws himself back into the pleasures of society, he records his encounters with the likes of Noël Coward, Prince Philip, General de Gaulle and Oscar Wilde's erstwhile lover Lord Alfred Douglas. He describes dinners with members of European royal dynasties, and recounts gossip and scandal about the great, the good and the less good. And he charts the implosion of his marriage and his burgeoning, passionate friendship with a young officer on Wavell's staff.These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life.Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (Volume 1): 1918-38
By Chips Channon. 2021
The Sunday Times bestselling edition of Chips Channon's remarkable diaries.Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after…
the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody. Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the growing scandal surrounding his close friends Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the abdication crisis, or the mood in the House of Commons in the lead up to the Munich crisis, his sense of drama and his eye for the telling detail are unmatched. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life. A heavily abridged and censored edition of the diaries was published in 1967. Only now, sixty years after Chips's death, can an extensive text be shared.________________________________'Chips perfectly embodied the qualities vital to the task: a capacious ear for gossip, a neat turn of phrase, a waspish desire to tell all, and easy access to the highest social circles across Europe.[...] Blending Woosterish antics with a Lady Bracknellesque capacity for acid comment. Replete with fascinating insights.' Jesse Norman, Financial TimesHenry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 3): 1943-57
By Chips Channon. 2022
This third and final volume of the unexpurgated diaries of Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon begins as the Second World War…
is turning in the Allies' favour. It ends with Chips descending into poor health but still able to turn a pointed phrase about the political events that swirl around him and the great and the good with whom he mingles.Throughout these final fourteen years Chips assiduously describes events in and around Westminster, gossiping about individual MPs' ambitions and indiscretions, but also rising powerfully to the occasion to capture the mood of the House on VE Day or the ceremony of George VI's funeral. His energies, though, are increasingly absorbed by a private life that at times reaches Byzantine levels of complexity. We encounter the London of the theatre and the cinema, peopled by such figures as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Douglas Fairbanks Jr, as well as a seemingly endless grand parties at which Chips might well rub shoulders with Cecil Beaton, the Mountbattens, or any number of dethroned European monarchs. He has been described as 'The greatest British diarist of the 20th century'. This final volume fully justifies that accolade.Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber: The Extraordinary Life of Rose Dugdale
By Sean O'Driscoll. 2022
'Fascinating . . . O'Driscoll's research is impressive' Ben Macintyre, The Times_____The story behind the hit movie Baltimore, starring Imogen…
Poots.The astonishing story of the English heiress who devoted her life to the IRA.She grew up in a Chelsea townhouse and on a Devon estate.She was presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace as a debutante in 1958.She trained at Oxford as an academic economist and had a love affair with a female professor (who was on the rebound from Iris Murdoch).At thirty, she commenced giving her inheritance away to the poor.In 1972, the deadliest year of the Northern Irish Troubles, she travelled to Ireland and joined the IRA.Sean O'Driscoll's Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber tells the astonishing story of Rose Dugdale, who went on to become a committed terrorist, participating in a major art heist and a bombing raid on a police and army barracks; who kept a pregnancy secret for nine months in prison and gave birth there; and who ended up at the heart of the IRA's bomb-making operation during its deadly final spasms in the 1990s. Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber is both the page-turning biography of a remarkable woman and a groundbreaking account of the inner workings of a terrorist organization._____'It would be hard to overstate how good this book is . . . a fantastic read' Sunday Independent'Superb . . . an even-handed and thrilling gallop through [Dugdale's] improbable life' Daily Telegraph'Excellent' Michael McDowell, Irish Times'Possibly the most extraordinary book you'll read this year' Irish Examiner'Jaw-dropping' Joe Duffy'Well-researched' Irish TimesHarold Nicolson
By Norman Rose. 2005
Harold Nicolson was a man of extraordinary gifts. A renowned politician, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster and gardener,…
his position in society and politics allowed him an insight into the most dramatic events of British, indeed world, history.Nicolson's personal life was no less dramatic. Married to Vita Sackville-West, one of the most famous writers of her day, their marriage survived, even prospered, despite their both being practising homosexuals. Unashamedly elitist, bound together by their literary, social, and intellectual pursuits, moving in the refined circles of the Bloomsbury group they viewed life from the rarified peaks of aristocratic haughtiness. Few men could boast such gifts as Nicolson possessed, yet he ended his life plagued by self-doubt. 'I am attempting nothing; therefore I cannot fail,' he once acknowledged. What went wrong? It was a question that haunted Nicolson throughout his adult life. Relying on a wealth of archival material, Norman Rose brilliantly disentangles fact from fiction, setting Nicolson's story of perceived failure against the wider perspective of his times.William Stone died on 10 January 2009 aged 108. He received a hero's funeral. Born in rural Devon, he joined…
the navy during the First World War, travelled the globe just before the British Empire's light began to fade and saw action in some of the most significant sea battles of the Second World War. Afterwards, he returned to Devon to run a barber's shop, an altogether more peaceable existence.As time passed, he became one of a dwindling number of men still alive who had served in the Great War. This meant that for some of the most momentous anniversaries clocked up recently - including the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War - William was a guest of honour. This autobiography bridges two wars and encompasses the remarkable episodes and adventures. It was an ordinary life lived in extraordinary times. He died at a time when the navy is attempting to embrace new ships that bear scant resemblance to those that William knew and face the challenges of a world that shrinks with every bold technological advance. His was a different kind of boldness. This is his astonishing story.Healing Quest: A Journey of Transformation
By Marie Herbert. 1996
When her two daughters were approaching the finish of their education Marie Herbert felt the need to mark the end…
of the child-rearing phase of her life by a rite of passage, a way to find herself a new place in the grand scheme of things. Long drawn to the Native American spiritual tradition, she planned a visit to the United States and an extraordinary journey of personal transformation under the guidance of Native American Healers. However, the end of her time of motherhood coincided tragically with the sudden death of one of her daughters and so her odyssey was to become far sadder and more urgent than she could have imagined. HEALING QUEST is the fascinating description of Marie Herbert's inner and outer journey of the heart. Vivid portraits of the people she met along the way are combined with honest accounts of the change in her feelings - together with ideas about how the readers, too, may learn from what she experienced and so gain insights into his or own life, whether in practical, emotional or spiritual terms.Henry VI (Penguin Monarchs)
By James Ross. 2016
Henry VI, son of the all-conquering Henry V, was one of the least able and least successful of English kings.…
His long reign, which started when he was only nine months old, ended in catastrophe, with the loss of England's territories in France and a bankrupt England's long decline into civil war: the wars of the Roses. Yet, failure though Henry undoubtedly was, he remains an enigma. Was he always, as he became in the last disastrous years of his rule, a holy fool, simple-minded to the point of insanity and prey to the ambitions of others? Or was he more active and, as some have suggested, actively malign? In this groundbreaking new portrait, James Ross shows a king whose priorities diverged sharply from what England expected of its monarchs, and whose fitful engagement with government was directly, though not solely, responsible for the disasters that engulfed the kingdom during his reign.Henry V: From Playboy Prince to Warrior King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Anne Curry. 2015
Foremost medieval historian Anne Curry offers a new reinterpretation of Henry V and the battle that defined his kingship: AgincourtHenry…
V's invasion of France, in August 1415, represented a huge gamble. As heir to the throne, he had been a failure, cast into the political wilderness amid rumours that he planned to depose his father. Despite a complete change of character as king - founding monasteries, persecuting heretics, and enforcing the law to its extremes - little had gone right since. He was insecure in his kingdom, his reputation low. On the eve of his departure for France, he uncovered a plot by some of his closest associates to remove him from power. Agincourt was a battle that Henry should not have won - but he did, and the rest is history. Within five years, he was heir to the throne of France. In this vivid new interpretation, Anne Curry explores how Henry's hyperactive efforts to expunge his past failures, and his experience of crisis - which threatened to ruin everything he had struggled to achieve - defined his kingship, and how his astonishing success at Agincourt transformed his standing in the eyes of his contemporaries, and of all generations to come.A Half Baked Idea: Winner of the Fortnum & Mason’s Debut Food Book Award
By Olivia Potts. 2019
WINNER OF THE FORTNUM & MASON'S DEBUT FOOD BOOK AWARD'A tender and beautifully written tour-de-force on love, grief, hope and…
cake. If this is not the book of the summer, I will eat my wig. An absolute triumph' THE SECRET BARRISTER 'An utterly beautiful, moving, bittersweet book on love and loss. I loved it' DOLLY ALDERTON _____________________________________________________When Olivia Potts was just twenty five, her mother died. Stricken with grief, she did something life changing and rather ridiculous: she gave up a high-flying legal career to study at the notoriously difficult Le Cordon Bleu, despite not being able to cook. No one ever told Olivia you couldn't bake your way to happiness - but could you?_______________________________________________ 'A brilliant, brave and beautiful book: funny and charming; utterly inspiring and life-affirming' Olivia Sudjic'A heart-wrenching yet humorous portrayal of grief, a delicious collection of recipes, an inspirational tale of changing careers, and a feel good love story' Vogue'Funny, sharp and sad. I laughed so much (and I cried)' Ella Risbridger, author of Midnight Chicken'An honest, brave and funny account of what it is to love, to lose love and how to make macarons' RedGimson’s Kings and Queens: Brief Lives of the Forty Monarchs since 1066
By Andrew Gimson. 2015
NEWLY REVISED AND UPDATEDA book for all lovers of history: the experienced and the novice, the serious and the silly.Gimson's…
Kings and Queens whirls us through the lives of our monarchs - from 1066 and William the Conqueror right up to Queen Elizabeth II and the present-day - to tell a tale of bastardy, courage, conquest, brutality, vanity, vulgarity, corruption, anarchy, absenteeism, piety, nobility, divorce, execution, civil war, madness, magnificence, profligacy, frugality, philately, abdication, dutifulness, family breakdown and family recovery.Written in Andrew Gimson's inimitable style, and illustrated by Martin Rowson, this is both a primer and a refresher for anyone who can't quite remember which were the good and bad Edwards or Henrys, or why so-and-so succeeded to the throne rather than his second cousin.'The most entertaining and instructive book on the English monarchy you will ever read' Daily TelegraphGetting Better: Life lessons on going under, getting over it, and getting through it
By Michael Rosen. 2023
In our lives, terrible things may happen. Michael Rosen has grieved the loss of a child, lived with debilitating chronic…
illness, and faced death itself when seriously unwell in hospital. In spite of this he has survived, and has even learned to find joy in life in the aftermath of tragedy.In Getting Better, he shares his story and the lessons he has learned along the way. Exploring the roles that trauma and grief have played in his own life, Michael investigates the road to recovery, asking how we can find it within ourselves to live well again after - or even during - the darkest times of our lives. Moving and insightful, Getting Better is an essential companion for anyone who has loved and lost, or struggled and survived.George VI: The Dutiful King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Philip Ziegler. 2014
Written by Philip Ziegler, one of Britain's most celebrated biographers, George VI is part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short,…
fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible formatIf Ethelred was notoriously 'Unready' and Alfred 'Great', King George VI should bear the title of 'George the Dutiful'. Throughout his life, George dedicated himself to the pursuit of what he thought he ought to be doing rather than what he wanted to do. Inarticulate and loathing any sort of public appearances, he accepted that it was his destiny to figure conspicuously in the public eye, gritted his teeth, battled his crippling stammer and got on with it. He was not born to be king, but he made an admirable one, and was the figurehead of the nation at the time of its greatest trial, the Second World War. This is a brilliant, touching and sometimes funny book about this reluctant public figure, and the private man.Philip Ziegler is the author of the authorised biographies of Mountbatten, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. His other books include The Duchess of Dino, William IV, The Black Death and most recently Olivier. Initially a diplomat, he worked for many years in book publishing before becoming a full-time writer.George V: The Unexpected King (Penguin Monarchs)
By David Cannadine. 2014
For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked…
a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage--frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast--George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on.David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central--if peculiar--pillar of British life.