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Downing Street Diary Volume Two: With James Callaghan in No. 10
By Bernard Donoughue. 2008
The first volume of Bernard Donoughue's Downing Street Diary was described by Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph as 'the…
best account of Harold Wlson's last days'; 'the sheer scale and detail are fascinating' wrote Peter Riddell in the Times Literary Supplement. This second volume covers the three years, 1976-79, when Donoughue was Senior Policy Advisor to James Callaghan.At first Callaghan quickly established dominance over his cabinet and restored calm after the plots and scandals of the later Wilson years. His incomes policy reduced inflation and, in the teeth of opposition from the left wing, he negotiated the notorious IMF loan at the expense of eliminating some of Labour's most cherished dreams. By 1978, Callaghan, a politician of great patriotism and decency, seemed to have succeeded in steering Britain into calmer waters. But then the storm broke. Trade union militants brushed aside their mediocre leaders and launched a ferocious attack on Callaghan's pay policy, driving up inflation and demonstrating the government's impotence. In the diaries we see the prime minister and the government paralysed as the 'Winter of Discontent' began to bite and politics took to the streets.As Labour drifted to inevitable defeat in the 1979 election we see Callaghan fighting honourably. From the smoke of battle there emerges a striking new leader: Margaret Thatcher. The diaries describe vividly both the decline and final collapse of 'old' Labour and how Mrs Thatcher took the opportunity to launch her crusade to dismantle trade union power and much of the British public sector.Besides James Callaghan the chief figures in this volume of Lord Donoughue's diaries are Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Tony Crosland, Michael Foot, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Tony Benn.Evelyn Prentis Bundle: A Nurse in Time/A Nurse in Action
By Evelyn Prentis. 1977
Desperate circumstances were something Evelyn Prentis had to get very used to when she began her life as a nurse.…
It was in 1934 that Evelyn left home for the first time to enrol as a trainee at a busy Nottingham hospital in the hope of £25 a year. A Nurse in Time is Evelyn's affectionate and funny account of those days of dedication and hardship, when never-ending nightshifts, strict Sisters and permanent hunger ruled life, and joy was to be found in a late-night pass and a packet of Woodbines.The second memoir in this collection is A Nurse in Action. Surprising Matron as well as herself, Evelyn Prentis managed to pass her Finals and become a staff-nurse. Encouraged, she took the brave leap of moving from Nottingham to London - brave not least because war was about to break. Not only did the nurses have to cope with stray bombs and influxes of patients from as far away Dunkirk, but there were also RAF men stationed nearby - which caused considerable entertainment and disappointment, and a good number of marriages ...But despite all the disruption to the hospital routine, Evelyn's warm and compelling account of a nurse in action, shows a nurse's life would always revolve around the comforting discomfort of porridge and rissoles, bandages and bedpans.Dare To Be A Daniel: Then and Now
By Tony Benn. 2005
Born into a family with a strong, radical dissenting tradition in which enterprise and public service were combined, Tony Benn…
was taught to believe that the greatest sin in life was to waste time and money. Life in his Victorian-Edwardian family home in Westminster was characterised by austerity, the last vestiges of domestic service, the profound influence of his mother, a dedicated Christian and feminist, and his colourful and courageous father, elected as a Liberal MP in 1906 and later serving in Labour Cabinets under Ramsay MacDonald and Clem Atlee. Benn followed in his father's footsteps, becoming one of the most famous and respected figures in modern British politics.Dare to be a Daniel feelingly recalls Tony Benn's years as one of three brothers experiencing life in the nursery, the agonies of adolescence and of school, where boys were taught to 'keep their minds clean' and the shadow of fascism and the Second World War with its disruption and family loss. This moving memoir also describes his emergence from World War Two as a keen socialist about to embark upon marriage and an unknown political future. The book ends with some of Tony Benn's reflections on many of the most important and controversial issues of our time.Digging Up the Dead: Uncovering the Life and Times of an Extraordinary Surgeon
By Druin Burch. 2007
A tearaway young man from Norfolk, Astley Cooper (1768-1841) became the world's richest and most famous surgeon. Admired from afar…
by the Brontës and up close by his student Keats, his success was born of an appetite for bloody revolutions. He set up an international network of bodysnatchers, won the Royal Society's highest prize and boasted to Parliament that there was no one whose body he could not steal. Experimenting on his neighbours' corpses and the living bodies of their stolen pets, his discoveries were as great as his infamy. Caught up in the French Revolution, and in attempts to bring radical democracy to Britain, Cooper nevertheless rose to become surgeon to royals from the Prince Regent to Queen Victoria. Setting the past against his own reactions to autopsies and operations, hospitals and poetry, Burch's Digging Up the Dead is a riveting account of a world of gothic horror as well as fertile idealism.Diaries Volume Two: Power and the People (The Alastair Campbell Diaries #2)
By Alastair Campbell. 2011
Power & the People covers the first two years of the New Labour government, beginning with their landslide victory at…
the polls in 1997. This second voume of Campbell's unexpurgated diaries details the initial challenges faced by Labour as they come to power and settle into running the country. It covers an astonishing array of events and personalities, progress and setbacks, crises and scandals, as Blair and his party make the transition from opposition to office.Diaries Volume Three: Power and Responsibility (The Alastair Campbell Diaries #3)
By Alastair Campbell. 2011
POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY is the third volume of Alastair Campbell's unique daily account of life at the centre of the…
Blair government. It begins amid conflict in Kosovo, and ends on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, changing the course of both the Bush presidency and the Blair premiership. In this volume, we see that New Labour's honeymoon is well and truly over. In addition to detailing the continuing tensions at the top, here we find graphic accounts of a variety of domestic crises: foot-and-mouth disease and protests over fuel prices which almost brought Britain to a halt. Volume Three includes Peter Mandelson's second resignation, the agonies of the Millennium Dome, and the most unexpected slow-handclapping in memory, when the Women's Institute turned against Tony Blair. Yet despite all the problems - not least the most accident-prone manifesto launch in history, complete with deputy prime minister John Prescott punching a voter - Labour won a second successive landslide election victory. That triumph is intimately recorded here, alongside the high points of this period, such as devolution to Northern Ireland and the fall of Milosevic.Diaries Volume One: Prelude to Power (The Alastair Campbell Diaries #1)
By Alastair Campbell. 2010
As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full…
version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997.Volume 1 details the extraordinary tensions between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as they resolved the question as to which one should stand to become Labour leader. It shows that right from the start, relations at the top were prone to enormous strain, suspicions and accusations of betrayal. Yet it also shows the political and personal bonds that tied them together, and which made them one of the most feared and respected electoral machines anywhere in the world. A story of politics in the raw, Prelude to Power is above all an intimate, detailed portrait of the people who have done so much to shape modern history.Death's Men: Soldiers Of The Great War
By Denis Winter. 1978
Death's Men is the classic bestselling story of the First World War as told by the soldiers themselves - reissued…
for the 2014 Centenary.Millions of British men were involved in the Great War of 1914-1918. But, both during and after the war, the individual voices of the soldiers were lost in the collective picture. Men drew arrows on maps and talked of battles and campaigns, but what it felt like to be in the front line or in a base hospital they did not know. Civilians did not ask and soldiers did not write.Death's Men portrays the humble men who were called on to face the appalling fears and discomforts of the fighting zone. It shows the reality of the First World War through the voices of the men who fought.'A raw, haunting read that puts you directly into the shoes of the men who rushed to volunteer at the start of the war' Guardian'An engrossing view of what it was like to live in the trenches, go on leave, get wounded, et cetera, and features voice after voice from the ranks' TelegraphDenis Winter was born in 1940 and read history at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Death's Men was first published in 1978, to critical and popular acclaim. This was followed by his book The First of the Few: Fighter Pilots of the First World War.Dear Joan: Love Letters from the Second World War
By Joan Charles, Tony Ross. 2010
Dear Joan comprises a unique series of letters between a young airman, Tony Ross, and Joan Charles, a girl whom…
he met briefly in England before he was posted to the Mediterranean during the Second World War. Through these letters, the book traces the development of their relationship from friendship to long-lasting love. With the enthusiasm of youth, Tony and Joan share their dreams of an ideal life in a reconstructed, post-Second World War Britain. Joan's letters reveal the problems of daily life in wartime Britain and give an insight into her voluntary work for the Fire Guard, the land army and the Red Cross, and the bureaucracy she encounters in her job with the Civil Service. Meanwhile, Tony describes the challenges of life in the desert, his increasing responsibilities in the RAF and his experiences in the numerous countries he visits throughout the Middle East. Dear Joan is a touching account of how Tony's and Joan's love began with a chance wartime encounter and quickly blossomed through letters exchanged throughout the Second World War, across the miles that separated them.Conflicts Of Interest: Diaries 1977-80
By Tony Benn. 1990
In this, the fourth volume of Tony Benn’s diaries, the Labour Government continues its fight for survival. Important developments are…
occurring both at home and internationally. In Britain, Benn as Secretary of State for Energy is directly involved with Windscale and decisions about nuclear power and oil policy. Abroad, the Government is concerned with Carter’s reappraisal of American foreign policy, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and problems of EEC membership.In the Labour party itself, new forces of radicalism and reform are emerging, resulting in changes in Labour’s policies and the ultimate formation of the SDP.Labour’s unsuccessful economic policy and the widening rift with the labour movement lead to the Winter of Discontent and a near state of emergency. With Labour voters defecting, the scene is set for the Thatcher years.Company Commander
By Russell Lewis. 2012
In 2008 Major Russell Lewis commanded a company of two hundred soldiers from the British Army's legendary Parachute Regiment on…
a six-month tour in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan.Company Commander is his story, a riveting first-person account of incredible bravery, telling what it is like to have 200 Paras depending on you constantly, to make decisions which can and do cost lives, to see men under your command killed and injured and being under the most intense pressure imaginable every minute of every day for six long months.Company Commander is a true leader's story – a unique and vivid mix of front-line battles and strategic decision making and an intensely personal and inspiring account of a tour in the most perilous theatre of war on the planet.Captain Tom's Life Lessons
By Captain Tom Moore. 2021
Start your year with the uplifting and heartwarming life lessons from a truly inspirational man, Captain Sir Tom Moore'Full of…
the infectious energy that inspired the nation' Daily Mirror'A dose of wisdom from a British hero . . . A paean to the power of positive thinking' Daily Telegraph________'One small soul like me won't make much difference' Captain TomIf Captain Tom's big heart and generosity of spirit helped see us through difficult days, this was his parting gift.In Life Lessons, Captain Tom has shared all that he learned from living a full and vibrant life. With cherished anecdotes and his signature humour, these heartening life stories will teach you how to:· Be comfortable with who you are· Keep smiling through the tough times· Walk in someone else's shoes· Keep an open mind· Find your purposeFull of the wit, warmth and wisdom that made him so special, his reflections and guiding principles form a long life, well lived; Life Lessons will be a source of reassurance, hope, and encouragement for generations to come.And a reminder, whenever times are hard, that tomorrow will be a good day.________Praise for Captain Sir Tom Moore:'A wonderful life story with lessons for us all . . . beautifully written' Daily Telegraph'Engaging . . . His upbeat nature shines through and reminds us how much worse this year would have been without him' Evening Standard'A great book' Good Morning Britain'A beautiful book. We have so much to learn from Captain Sir Tom' Chris EvansCaptain Cook
By Vanessa Collingridge. 2002
A uniquely woven story encompassing three separate centuries and three different lives. Captain Cook, best known for his heroic voyages…
through the Pacific Ocean, is brought to life in vivid detail. We follow his humble beginnings as the son of a farm labourer, through his convention-shattering treatment of the indigenous groups he met on his travels, and then onto his final tragic voyage which signalled the end of his revered reputation. One hundred years on from the death of Cook, another great man, George Collingridge begins his own adventure. He, like Cook was oblivious to the implications his journey would have. Along the way he unfolds ancient maps, secret tales and unearths hidden lands and buried treasure. He is also said to have realised that it was not Cook who discovered Australia - it was the Portugese. This firm belief was the eventual cause of his self-destruction.Another hundred years later Vanessa Collingridge, is searching for books on her lifelong hero Captain Cook in a university library. She discovers the name of a distant cousin, George Collingridge, in a dusty card index. And so a new journey of discovery begins - in the footsteps of her hero and his nemesis.Call the Ambulance!
By Les Pringle. 2013
Exploding pressure cookers, a thwarted wife's deadly revenge and transvestites in distress - manning an ambulance in the seventies kept…
you on your toes.Having survived the rites of passage as a probationer, Les Pringle now has to face up to the reality of life as an ambulance man in Thatcher's Britain. He does this with humour and fortitude - two qualities which are essential if he is to cope with cases ranging from the absurd to the heart rending.From attending murder scenes to delivering babies ... it's quite a life for Les, and one that he and his shift mates tread with warmth and humour in equal measure.British Muslim Soldier
By Adnan Sarwar. 2014
It isn't nice but you're an animal, so you can do it, dressed in green and brown and black waiting…
to be attacked and smiling because you had bullets for teeth. Adnan Sarwar, a Pakistani boy from Burnley, joined the British Army – the White Man’s Army. Why did he do it? To prove he was as white as his friends? For Queen and Country? Or to work out who he was – British, Muslim or a Soldier? Perhaps he could be all three. ‘British Muslim Soldier’ is Adnan’s journey through the battlegrounds of war, race and identity, facing up to the often brutal realities of these fraught warzones. There is racism, family ties, tedious routine, enemies and torture. But what Adnan’s story really comes down to is love – love for his family, for his fellow squaddies – and a deep-rooted sense of identity and belonging. …when did these clothes fit so well? When did Corporal become an older brother and when did the army become a mother? When did I become a British soldier?Brothers in War
By Michael Walsh. 2009
Brothers in War is the immensely powerful and deeply tragic story of the Beechey brothers, and how they paid the…
ultimate price for King and country. All eight went to fight in the Great War on such far-flung battlefields as France, Flanders, East Africa and Gallipoli. Only three would return alive. Even amid the carnage of the trenches, it was a family trauma almost without parallel. Their wives and sweethearts were left bereft, their widowed mother Amy devastated. It is a tragedy that has remained forgotten and unmarked for nearly 90 years. Until now.Kept in a small brown case handed down by the brothers' youngest sister, Edie, were hundreds of letters sent home from the front by the Beechey boys: scraps of paper scribbled on in the firing line, heartfelt messages written from a deathbed, exasperated correspondences detailing the absurdities of life in the trenches. From it all emerges the remarkable tale of the lost brothers.Tragic and moving, poetic in its intensity, Brothers in War reveals first-hand the catastrophe that was the Great War; all told through one family forced to sacrifice everything.Brian Cowen: The Path to Power
By Jason O'Toole. 2008
Meet Ireland's new Taoiseach, Brian CowenDespite a high profile at the centre of Irish political life for more than twenty…
years, relatively little is known about our new leader. Just who is Brian Cowen?The story begins in the village of Clara, Co. Offaly, where family, local life and the GAA were formative influences. The sudden and unexpected death of his father, Ber Cowen, Fianna Fáil TD for Laois Offaly, thrust a twenty-four year-old Cowen into the heart of Irish politics. After an eight-year apprenticeship on the back benches, Cowen was appointed to his first ministerial position by Albert Reynolds and later went on to hold the senior cabinet positions of Health, Foreign Affairs and Finance. By the time of Bertie Ahern's resignation, Cowen's standing in the party was such that his election to the leadership of Fianna Fáil seemed inevitable. On 7 May 2008, Brian Cowen became Ireland's eleventh Taoiseach. Here, for the first time, is a portrait of Brian Cowen which follows his remarkable life story, tracing the road to power from early childhood right up to his eventful early months in the office of An Taoiseach.Bomber Flight Berlin
By Mike Rossiter. 2010
'We believed in ourselves so much, no one ever panicked, even when the situation looked so desperate. We all believed…
that our best chance of staying alive was to stick together.'Flying Lancaster bombers was one of the most dangerous missions of the war. Yet night after night Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie risked their lives in the skies over Germany. Together they faced incredible dangers, flak damage, close encounters with the fighter planes of the Luftwaffe, and crash landings. Against this background a friendship was formed that bound the crew of C Charlie together against all odds.Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie are unique in having flown together for fifty missions and living to tell the tale. Bomber Flight Berlin is the story of a group of ordinary men, from different walks of life, thrown together by the forces of war. It is the story of those missions above Berlin, as they flew into what seemed certain death, and aircraft all around them were blasted out of the sky. It is also a testament to a remarkable friendship.Blood Kindred: W. B. Yeats, the Life, the Death, the Politics
By W J McCormack. 1934
In June 1934, W. B. Yeats gratefully received the award of a Goethe-Plakette from Oberburgermeister Krebs, four months after his…
early play The Countess Cathleen had been produced in Frankfurt by SS Untersturmfuhrer Bethge. Four years later, the poet publicly commended Nazi legislation before leaving Dublin to die in southern France. These hitherto neglected, isolated and scandalous details stand at the heart of this reflective study of Yeats's life, his attitudes towards death, and his politics.Blood Kindred identifies an obsession with family as the link connecting Yeats's late engagement with fascism to his Irish Victorian origins in suburban Dublin and industrializing Ulster. It carefully documents and analyses his involvement with both Maud Gonne and her daughter Iseult, his secretive consultations with Irish army officers during his Senate years, his incidental anti-Semitism, and his approval of the right-wing royalist group L'Action Française in the 1920s. The familiar peaks and troughs of Irish history, such as the 1916 Rising and the death of Parnell, are re-oriented within a radical new interpretation of Yeats's life and thought, his poetry and plays. As far as possible Bill McCormack lets Yeats speak for himself through generous quotation from his newly accessible correspondence. The result is a combative, entertaining biography which allows Ireland's greatest literary figure to be seen in the round for the first time.Blood and Sand: The BBC security correspondent’s own extraordinary and inspiring story
By Frank Gardner. 2006
On the June 6, 2004, while on assignment in Riyadh, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner and cameraman Simon Cumbers were…
ambushed by Islamist gunmen. Simon was killed outright. Frank was hit in the shoulder and leg. As he lay in the dust, a figure stood over him and pumped four more bullets into his body at point-blank range...Against all the odds, Frank Gardner survived. Today, although partly paralysed, Frank continues to travel the world, reporting and making documentaries for the BBC. This acclaimed memoir was brought up to date with a new chapter that recounted his return to Saudi Arabia for the first time since he was shot and the story he tells continues to move and inspire, and remains an affirmation of his deep understanding of - and affection for - the Islamic world in these uncertain times.___'Gardner tells his remarkable tale well and bravely, with an astonishing lack of anger and enduring love and respect for the Islamic world' SUNDAY TIMES'Brave, unsentimental and genuinely inspiring' EVENING STANDARD 'What makes Gardner's moving, often humorous, deeply personal story so important is the fact that he has woven into it a brilliantly dispassionate, clear-eyed account of the Islamic world' SCOTSMAN'A witty, self-deprecating, inspiring testament' DAILY TELEGRAPH