Nine Boats - Nine Lives

Children of Another Time: Cornish Childhood Memories From Truro in World War II

Childhood memories from the early years of the Second World War are bound together in a unique way within Children of Another Time, as Neville Harcourt Paddy takes us back to Hendra, an area in Truro, Cornwall, nestled beneath the city’s iconic viaduct.

With the arrival of war, everything changed, and the people of Truro took on work to help the war effort, whilst opening their already cramped homes to the evacuees.

Against the backdrop of blackouts, rationing and air raid sirens, for the children, life found its way into the cracks of war’s shadow. The woods and countryside surrounding the city became their magical battleground, where they waged their own fight against the despised Nazi regime, echoing the whispers of their parents’ fears overheard at home.

For these children, the war wasn’t just something happening abroad – it was etched into the fabric of their growing up, a strange blend of fear, resilience, and the unyielding spark of childhood imagination.

Through a distinctive blend of ongoing narratives and standalone stories, Neville intertwines the resilience of childhood innocence with the history and beauty of Hendra. Children of Another Time is a nostalgic tribute to a generation who grew up in the midst of war, finding light in the darkest of times.

ISBN: 9781852002169

Size: 217x140mm

Binding: hardback

Length: 298

Saving Lives in Scilly: The Doctor, the Lighthouse Keeper and their Families

This is the story of the author’s two paternal great-great-grandfathers, both of whom spent over forty years helping to save lives on the Isles of Scilly: Edwin Lewis Davis as the keeper of St Agnes Lighthouse and John Grenfell Moyle as the islands’ only doctor. It also follows the mariners, miners, preachers and teachers of the Moyle and Davis families as they become part of the great Cornish diaspora. We accompany them over the seven seas aboard speedy clippers, to the Antipodes during the gold rush, to the industrial north of England, to lighthouses along rugged coastlines and to the war zones of the Crimea peninsula and the Western Front. With them we enter Victorian classrooms, workhouses, prisons and lunatic asylums.

The book is richly illustrated with images of people, places and mementoes, including the paintings of John Grenfell Moyle, who became a renowned West Country artist. Quotations from contemporary writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins and Mrs Gaskell help to transport readers into the world inhabited by the author’s forebears and their own. She pays particular attention to the lives of great-grandmothers and great-aunts, which have so often been hidden from history.

Saving Lives in Scilly will appeal to readers with an interest in the sea, the West Country, lighthouses, medicine, the lives of women and in social history. In addition, those keen to explore their family’s past will find inspiration in the author’s journey of discovery.

ISBN: 9781852002176

Size: 217x140mm

Binding: hardback

123 Photos

Length: 284pp

Lust, deceit and disease lurk within the strange painting called An Allegory with Venus and Cupid created by Bronzino in Florence around the year 1540 and now hanging in the National Gallery in London. Venus and Cupid are nude and kissing lasciviously. Also in the painting are Time; a screaming figure; a person or mask with the back of its head missing and a weird creature, whose upper part is a pretty girl and lower half some kind of reptile.

The meaning of the painting is a mystery. At present it is thought to be about syphilis, but it was probably a diplomatic gift sent to King Francis I of France when he was dying, possibly of syphilis: would he have appreciated a painting about the disease that was killing him?

The Riddle of Bronzino takes a relaxed, discursive look at the figures and objects in the painting and at when, why and how it was created. This leads to the discovery of a new multi-layered solution to the riddle of its meaning and shows that, as well as being a beautiful object of historical interest, the Allegory is a psychologically penetrating image of relevance today.

ISBN: 9781852001902 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

17 colour plates and illustrations

Length: 383pp

By focusing on the first 23 years of his life living at New Cross, S.E. London, author Valentine Barnes, now in his 90th year, has managed to encompass a wealth of social history from the period leading up to and just beyond the Second World War. 

The housing block of the title is that of Dennett’s Road and its surrounds, and Valentine Barnes remembers the families and businesses that used to reside and ply their trades within this area in the 1920s and 30s. These include the local greengrocers owned by his grandparents, the local cinema, newsagents, ice cream sellers, the barber, bakers and others, all of whom made up a close community that, together with a strictly disciplined schooling, produced a cohesive and caring neighbourhood. 

Valentine remembers his first day at school and reflects on pre-war education, he recollects trips to Southend, Ramsgate, Margate and Clacton with his grandmother on pre-war paddle steamers, and recalls experiences in the Second World War when, still well under age, he donned his Light Rescue uniform with his companions to pull the dead and injured from the wreckage and carnage of German bombings. 

From the simple joys of collecting cigarette cards or playing on 1930s streets that were mainly devoid of motor vehicles, through to the terror of the air raid sirens during the Blitz and the social changes caused by World War II, Valentine shares his experiences and understanding of those far-off days from a perspective that can only be gained by having lived through them. 

ISBN: 9781852001858 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: Hardback 

68 colour and b&w photos 

Length: 283pp

The Narrative of a Tour in the Splendid Summer of 1842: Traversing Fifteen Southern Counties of England

The text in this book is taken entirely from the 1842 hand-written travelogue of James Barnes, who, with his wife Mary, set off from Peckham in Surrey to travel in a pony and chaise around some fifteen counties of Southern England. 

In following the couple's experiences while travelling in the mid-19th century, we are able to view the people and places exactly as they were 174 years ago: a time when Queen Victoria reigned; the first photograph appeared in The Times; Charles Dickens' American Notes were published and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great ship, the SS Great Britain, was under construction.

The accounts of places visited include Lyme Regis, where just three years previously the famous landslip had occurred; their encounter with a floating bridge at the River Itchen; a visit to Mr Fish's Marine Villa and to the Goodwood races, as well as the house and grounds of Earl Powlett in Somerset. There's also a disturbing encounter with bed bugs in an inn, and the Irishman who lived with his family and animals in a cave about 200 feet from the beach at Hastings: all diligently documented under candlelight at the end of their journey by James himself.

We learn about the social customs of the day, and the changes in society that were still in upheaval from the 'Great Revolution caused by the introduction of Machinery and Steam power'. Here we are able to 'live' history.

Along with the text there are around 50 black and white illustrations from the period and also notes at the end by the author's great-great-grandson, Valentine Barnes, who fortunately unearthed this rare narrative for all to enjoy.

ISBN: 9781852001803 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: Hardback 

50 b&w illustrations 

Length: 171pp

Forgotten Genius: A Celebration of Past Engineering Craftsmanship

All around Britain lie the relics of past engineering genius. Many of these are in museums, some lie half-buried in disuse, and a few still help to provide a living in the 21st century. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that those who crafted these machines, tools and other devices, have left a legacy of technical expertise that remains intact and in use to this day.

Forgotten Genius is an account of this craftsmanship, acknowledging the determination and inventiveness of the people that brought about the enormous commercial and physical changes which mainly took place during the Industrial Revolution, during the years 1740-1840.

As well as the well-known engineers from the period, such as Brunel, Wren, Watt, etc., there are many who have been all but forgotten, and yet there is no doubt that it was the perseverance, skill and imagination of all these men, often from humble backgrounds and with little or no formal education, that led to a flourishing British economy and an increased standard of living for all.

This book deals with the inspiration, processes, products and mechanisms behind our engineering heritage in the 18th and 19th centuries, and considers the measuring instruments, materials, transport and power which were necessary to implement the enormous changes in mechanisation taking place at that time. There is also reference given to the changes in work practice, apprenticeships, and the adjustment of society in general due to the growth of factories harnessing the best use of industrial methods.

Accompanying the text are illustrative drawings and photographs, all helping to show the incredible skill of our predecessors.

ISBN: 9781852001544 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 145pp

Nancy Vlasto has led an extraordinary life. Born to a famous surgeon in the roaring '20s, she began life in a comfortable Bayswater home complete with servants. By age nine, she was starring in a Pathé newsreel as a young tennis star. But by the outbreak of WWII, the feisty young Nancy had chosen to swap a world of privilege for `a life well lived'. As Nazi bombs rained down on London, she worked in a children's hospital, bravely staying above ground with little ones too sick to take to the shelters. Later, she worked as a midwife and district nurse amid the postwar poverty of the East End. 

But the irrepressible Nancy always found time for fun - from wartime parties to going naked in the Turkish baths at Paddington. And by the '50s she had discovered a taste for performing. She made TV appearances before heading to Canada in search of fresh adventures - ending up running her own hugely popular radio programme for children. Back home, Nancy turned her talents to a career as a health visitor before she eventually became the deputy headteacher of a special school. Now - well into her 80s - she continues a lifetime of fundraising dressed as `Blossom' the panto-style horse. She's taken tea with The Queen, enjoyed many honours from grateful colleagues and organisations and nurtured a lifelong love of music and singing. 

Here Nancy shares a wealth of memorable stories from every exciting 

episode of her life, bringing each era vividly to life. She shares the sometimes moving, often funny and always illuminating characters and scrapes she has enjoyed along the way. This hugely enjoyable memoir brings Nancy's adventures to life - showing what life was like for an indefatigable working woman across more than seven decades. Nancy has never lost the thrill of wondering what life can offer her. She celebrated her 80th birthday by swimming with dolphins and is still asking. . . what's next?

ISBN: 9781852001490 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 296pp 

32pp photos

The year is 1794 and Jason Bradley is ordered to join the British Navy on a sloop-of-war to fight the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

Having completed a degree in Military History Jason has been hired by Admiral Blaine, who is in control of the Department of Special Operations within British Naval Intelligence, to gain sea experience so as to research and bring in fresh naval strategic ideas.

Jason joins the warship Sprite as a midshipman, carrying independent orders from Blaine which will not be known to his captain unless he is forced to use them. Soon learning the fatigue of manoeuvring sails and climbing the rigging, Jason is also discovered to have a lethal ability to control the heavy guns carried on the warship.

The crew's aim is to destroy the merchant shipping around the French Mediterranean coastline; something which, with Jason's knowledge and ability, they find they are particularly successful in achieving.

Following Lord Hood's forced withdrawal from Toulon he plans an assault on Corsica. The crew of Sprite are involved in this combined army-navy operation which gains Jason further sea experience, and subsequently Sprite is to operate from a new base at Bastia.

The exceptional success of Sprite's stealthy raiding stirs the ire of the French Navy and they become determined to search for, and destroy, Sprite.

ISBN: 9781852001407 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 280pp

In her third diary we follow Ingrid Jacoby's life through the first half of the 1950s from the age of 23 to 26 years. 

Still in Oxford and now working for Rosenthals' Antiquarian Booksellers, she records relationships between all her work colleagues whilst finding a particularly deep attachment to Erica Spender, a worldly woman who sees in Ingrid something of her own spirit.

The intimacies and eccentricities of a number of boyfriends are brought to life throughout the entries and the names of Markus, WB, Alan, Jonathan, Antony, Peter and Michael weave in and out, coming and going, as either good or bad sexual encounters ensue or promises of more stable relationships occur.

At times Ingrid is sent into depression, will nothing work for her? She remembers, at the age of 12, being transported via Kindertransport from Vienna to Falmouth with her sister Lieselotte, discovering that her mother was lost forever after dying in a German concentration camp and subsequently being unable to properly find a close relationship with her father and his new wife. Holidays back to Austria and Falmouth help to build awareness and understanding, although still leave a sense of estrangement.

Finally though, there is a relationship that brings stability and reason to Ingrid. She meets and falls deeply in love with Stan, and as the pages of this third diary come to a close we know that her heart and life have become secure.

ISBN: 9781852001360 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 372pp 

Illus: 26 b/w within text

Whilst being a tremendously well-researched work on Scottish heraldic heritage, this is not simply an account of Scottish history. The fact is that this book contains the stories of men and women who genuinely believed in their inheritance, their diversity and their ability to regain for Scotland and England a truly great kingdom; they are the Jacobites. 

From the time of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and James II’s fleeing the country, the Jacobite cause has existed. A strong belief that they should serve the proper and rightful King was their strength and ambition, and this feeling of existing for, and belonging to, the Jacobite movement is something which has been passed down in many families throughout Scotland across the intervening centuries. 

The original mantle was passed from James II to James III and VIII de jure, and then on to Charles Edward Stuart, the man known to all as Bonnie Prince Charlie who fought at Culloden. Whilst this latter figure has been romanticised over the years, with his flight from the battlefield aided by Flora MacDonald, this book tells the story of all those others involved in the great Jacobite cause before that fateful day. It includes the stories of many other truly heroic women such as Clementina Sobieska, James III ’s wife and mother to Charles Edward, who travelled across the Alps incognito to marry the man she loved although she had never yet seen him in person.

These individual stories of men and women bound by a single cause make an interesting and compelling read, if sometimes tragic, and not all have previously been published except as parts of family genealogies. So this is probably the first comprehensive chronicle of those following that proud Jacobite cause.

ISBN: 9781852001292 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 174pp

Lady Katherine Gordon, daughter of the much-married earl of Huntly, starts life with a handicap; she is uncertain which of her f ather’s wives had been her mother. Her courage and beauty overcome this uncertainty, and in course of a varied life she acquires the lasting devotion of her own king, James IV, and of many other men, four of whom she marries. A fifth is Henry VII, who surprisingly – he killed her first husband for political reasons – is recorded as desiring no other comfort than her company. Kate is generous enough to give it to him. She also greatly loves his queen.

Her story includes the tragedy of the stranger whose first bride she became, and who may or may not have been the younger of the sons of Edward IV said to have been murdered earlier in the Tower. This and the later marriages apart, the story of European entanglements connected with the desired marriage of Henry VII ’s son Arthur and an infanta of Spain, who later married his brother Henry VIII, make compelling reading. Through it all Kate continues wise, kindly and beautiful even in old age. She is one of the few people to have looked down on her own face in a tomb she did not occupy, leaving her third husband inside it and returning to where she had been happy with her second. She also, though differently, loved her young fourth husband, who was to carve out a future for himself after Kate died in 1537, the year Henry VIII at last got himself a son.

All these people come alive in Kate’s recollections, which include her grief at news of the Scots defeat at Flodden. Her brother, and ancestor of Lord Byron, was killed there with James IV, who had married Henry VII ’s daughter and in the end gave rise to the present royal family.

ISBN: 9781852001254 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 197pp

Attempts to solve the mystery surrounding the loss of his destroyer HMS Fortune, along with the complete Royal Navy convoy HXL 267, in September 1943, lead Commander Bob Garner into even more dangerous waters than those of the North Atlantic.

Although exonerated of blame, he is dismayed that his superiors do not accept his report that the convoy was attacked by an exceptionally fast submarine. There also seems to be an unwarranted secrecy about the purpose of the defeated convoy. 

Traumatised by the loss of the Fortune and the lack of reaction by his superiors, he finds his personal life in turmoil and wife Melissa unable to cope with his state of mind; his only solace in the form of Mary Forbes, a sympathetic Wren officer.

Meanwhile the captured Frigatten Kapitan Hinterberger seems to know about the sinking of the British convoy, but teases Bob Garner, holding back on any real information.

As the truth unfolds regarding the loss of convoy HXL 267, the war service of German Kapitan Hinterberger, the secret of the high speed submarines and the purpose of ‘Operation Cloudburst’, Commander Bob Garner shares his place on the stage of history with figures such as General Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler and Gross Admiral Doenitz, who led the U-boat campaign, together with double agent Garbo and the mysterious Committee XX. 

ISBN: 9781852001247 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 291pp

My Darling Diary : Volume Two - The Girl in and Out of Love - Oxford 1944-1950

Following Ingrid Jacoby’s first published diary, which dealt with her wartime arrival in Britain under the Kindertransport movement at the age of 12 and subsequent life through to 1944, Ingrid Jacoby’s second My Darling Diary records her life from late in 1944 through to 1950. 

During these years Ingrid lives in Oxford, where she works at the Central Library for a while and then at Parker ’s Bookshop. Throughout her encounters with those in charge and with various colleagues and friends, her diary reflects the deep thoughts and feelings of a girl ’s coming of age in Britain during the 1940s. 

It is the honesty and frankness of Ingrid’s diary that entices the reader to read on; whether it is her unprovoked lecherous encounter with the famed singer Richard Tauber or her own feelings of love for various men who wend in and out of her life, we know that the sentiments are real, being told directly to us as the diary takes on a persona of its own.

There are times of loneliness, times of desire, sexual experiences with ‘WB’ her married boss at the bookshop and with boyfriends, all interwoven with feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and the myriad of emotions attached to any young woman from any age. However, this is Ingrid ’s story, and in so being is also completely original, enticing and compelling to read. 

ISBN: 9781852001230 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 412pp

Prinny Remembers - the Private Reflections of His Majesty King George the Fourth 

Thackeray cruelly wrote of George IV as no more than a tailor’s dummy. Later verdicts have been founded on this. A more recent one states that he was ‘an undutiful son, a bad husband, and a callous father,’ without finding very much to say against his kingship. 

None of the above is accurate, given the knowledge of lately revealed letters from George Augustus himself and those of his daughter, Princess Charlotte. George, better remembered as Prince Regent and often called Prinny, was in many ways a secretive man despite his outward flamboyance. Hints here and there in the Princess ’s letters show him as an affectionate father in private. In public, his attitude to her had to be ambivalent because her mother, long estranged from him by her own choice, made common cause with his political enemies, and what has generally been put down to caprice can be seen, knowing the facts, as statesmanship.

This charming, gifted and intelligent man contrived, despite an appalling hereditary illness concealed with great courage, to give his name to a brilliant Regency and thereafter to reign as King for a further ten years.

Prinny Remembers is an attempt to reconstruct the probable thoughts and memories of this secret man, dying almost alone at Windsor, old, ill and blind, in 1830, and put right the biased press usually given to him. 

ISBN: 9781852001223 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 251pp

It is September 1952, and eighteen-year-old Peter Rundle has no idea of the adventure awaiting him when he reports for National Service with the Duke of Cornwall ’s Light Infantry. Already a capable boxer, he knows he will learn how to use lethal weaponry, and he is not unduly surprised by his posting to Germany. But he doesn ’t expect to have to fight for his life in a vicious midnight brawl, nor does he anticipate meeting the girl of his dreams.

Katrinka is a young Polish beauty, officially designated as a post-war refugee and living in a Displaced Persons ’ Camp. When the West German authorities learn that she is involved with a member of the occupying forces they decide to return her to her homeland – a country on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. 

Heartbroken at the prospect of being separated for ever, the young lovers decide on an audacious plan to smuggle Katrinka back to England – a desperate gamble which they manage to pull off. However, the authorities are long-armed and Katrinka is arrested in Cornwall and deported to Poland.

As weeks of torment and grief grow into months, Peter’s sense of hopelessness is overtaken by an iron-willed determination to find Katrinka and bring her back – a virtually impossible task in the hostile reality of the Cold War. 

Shortly following his demob, however, fate smiles on Peter in the form of an opportunity to join the mercantile marine service. This, together with a chance meeting with a member of MI5, creates another opportunity for a dangerous attempt to find Katrinka; including a brutal encounter with the Polish Secret Police.

The stakes are high; the dangers real; the outcome anything but certain.

ISBN: 9781852001209 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 219pp

An aura of mystery surrounds a medieval ring that was once the seal of a powerful Marcher Lord. The story that unfolds around its possessor tells of treason and rebellion, betrayal and intrigue. It tells of love too, a love that spans the centuries.

Medically discharged from the army in 1999, Eddie Mortimer is on his way to Ludlow, the seat of his Marcher Lord ancestors, hoping to sell a family heirloom, the Mortimer Seal, when he has a brief but passionate interlude with a mysterious Welsh girl called Cathy. 

Hospitalised after foiling a robbery, he finds that the people and events leading to his injury seem to coincide and become entangled with events from the early fifteenth century, where he becomes immersed in Owain Glyn Dwˆr’s struggle for Welsh independence and the part played in it by the Mortimers. In his traumatised state it is he who meets Glyn Dwˆr in the fateful battle at Pilleth in 1402.

He becomes enchanted too with Glyn Dwˆr’s daughter Catrin, although consumed with jealousy over her flirtations and continually haunted by distant memories of the wraith-like Cathy. He is an observer of Glyn Dwˆr’s early success in the war of independence, when the rebel becomes acclaimed Prince of Wales. Glyn Dwˆr’s power gradually wanes however, as Henry IV’s superior forces gain the advantage. For Mortimer the climax of the rebellion is reached when Harlech Castle is besieged by Prince Hal, the English Prince of Wales.

Thus Eddie’s dream is etched with historic reality, though perhaps the vicious battles and his two loves are all part of a dream from which there is no awakening.

ISBN: 9781852001148 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 327pp

A Tale of Strawberries - Shakespeare’s Journeys in Scotland

Pamela Hill has put flesh on the bones of the assumption that Shakespeare went to Scotland. The acceptance of this fact, presumed not least by the information in Macbeth, together with the matter of the cryptic messages in his plays, has been well-founded by many historians.

In A Tale of Strawberries Shakespeare’s visit to Scotland happens in the years 1592-93, when theatres in London are closed because of plague. He tours Scotland with a small band of players.

He arrives in time to hear rumours about the murder of a young earl in February, meets the suspected murderer Huntly and his possible instigator, the enigmatic King James VI. The king’s fears, jealousies and devious forms of revenge giving Shakespeare many new stories, several of which will be used in his plays, including Othello.

The people he meets, some of whom remember the king’s dead mother Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots), and the fate of those who had helped or hindered her and her son, are varied enough to make a kind of tapestry. They accept him as a writer and player, allowing him to know some of their secrets. The tale of the blood-stained strawberry embroidered handkerchief, produced by Mary Stuart herself, which passes from Huntly to his sister Jean, being but one of many.

Following these journeys throughout Scotland, Shakespeare returns to London by Christmas 1594.

ISBN: 9781852001135 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 155pp

Brave Little Dutch Girl: Memories of a Small Child in Holland During the German Occupation 1940-45

The ‘brave little Dutch girl’ was Wilhelmina Harris’s sister Dicky, who rode off on her bicycle and braved the bitterly cold weather to bring back what little food could be gleaned in the dark days of hunger, which were intentionally inflicted by the occupying German forces in Holland during the Second World War.

Through the eyes of Wilhelmina, the youngest daughter, we follow the lives of the van der Hoek family in Maassluis, a strategically placed town. The Dutch despised the Germans for their cruelty and arrogance, and three of her uncles who were sailors made for England to join the allied forces. Her father listened to news broadcasts from the BBC, which broadcast the Dutch Radio Oranje during the war, although all radios were strictly forbidden. This meant they could keep up with progress during the war and secretly inform others about it too.

Woven within the account the author relates details of what was happening throughout Holland and the terrible persecution of the Jews. There were also the many cases of bravery where the Dutch people, particularly farmers, would hide Jews and allied pilots.

The worst period was when operation Market Garden (A Bridge Too Far) failed and the people were deliberately starved by the Germans. They had no coal or wood, no electricity, water was rationed and there was no food. Thousands starved to death, and the first ever food-drops took place by the RAF and USA in 1945.

This account is not sad, but in its honesty it displays the resilience of the Dutch and the way they coped with terrible hardships.

ISBN: 9781852001063 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 176pp 

22 b&w photos

A novel portraying ironic insight into the mid-nineteenth century, where a puritan régime persists on the surface but certainly not beneath it. . .

After the death of his reprobate uncle, the idealistic young squire Gareth Seaborne inherits the family estate, together with money only to be awarded if there is a son and heir born within two years.

Stella, the squire’s beautiful wife of Viking descent, fails to become pregnant, so a plan is hatched whereby the devoted maid-servant Pilar secretly gives birth to a boy. The deception is uncovered by the cruel and lascivious Sheriff Stern, who blackmails his way into Stella’s bed. From this liaison a daughter is born, who is deaf but grows to have her father’s licentious ways; and a new-found wantonness is awakened in Stella who, with the squire away helping the Irish in the famine, becomes ever more inextricably involved with the man she originally despised.

Secrecy and intrigue abound as these characters continue their improper course, just as that of the luminous planet Venus. But which of them will finally be fulfilled?

ISBN: 9781852001049

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 160pp

Carefully woven around the facts surrounding the Glyn Dwˆr Welsh rebellion early in the 15th century this novel brings to life the characters and action of that time.

In the turbulent spring of 1400, Idris the archer joins Owain Glyn Dwˆr’s retinue at Sycharth. There he soon finds himself in love with Owain’s flirtatious daughter Catrin and involved in Owain’s epic struggle to regain Welsh sovereignty from Henry IV. 

Support for Owain’s rebellion grows and within a few years he commands power across Wales, is recognised by Charles V of France and gains many allies amongst dissident English lords.

Idris finds himself fighting alongside Dafydd, a burly experienced man at arms who introduces him to the brutality of battle. He also keeps a fatherly eye on Idris’s thwarted love affair with Catrin, now married to Sir Edmund Mortimer in a political match which has left Idris desolated.

Hopes of Welsh independence recede as the English rebel lords are defeated by Henry and a half-hearted French invasion fails. As the tide of war turns against Owain’s forces, Harlech Castle falls to the English and Catrin and her mother are imprisoned in London. The end of the rebellion comes when Owain and his men are defeated in their last great battle at Shrewsbury.

After years of being hunted in the Welsh hills and adamantly refusing the King’s pardon, Prince Owain and Idris set out on the long journey to the mystical ancient monument of Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey, where Owain makes his final bequest and Idris receives his reward.

ISBN: 9781852000981

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 300pp

In 1942, when two young Land Army girls arrive at the Cornish farm of Tolcarne Merock, Reuben Gutheridge the old bachelor farmer and his farm worker Norman Innis are not sure what to make of them. But Reuben appreciates the free labour as does Norman a new pair of good-looking females.

However, Marcia and Ruby soon prove their worth working on the farm, and they both settle down well in the small community. They discover country life is certainly not dull, with dances at the village hall and all-night parties on the farm helped along by Reuben’s illicit supply of alcohol.

Ruby and Norman fall in love and become engaged, and Marcia meets and falls in love with Webster, an RAF navigator from the nearby wartime airfield.

With Webster flying most nights on bombing raids over war-torn Germany, Marcia’s natural concern over his life becomes even greater following a troublesome dream. Yet even in her worst nightmare she could not have envisaged that both of them would end up shot down deep within the German countryside.

Thus unfolds a chapter from the history of Tolcarne Merock. With cantankerous old Reuben turning out to have a sensitive side to his character, and the lives of Ruby, Norman, Marcia and Webster becoming ever more inextricably linked.

ISBN: 9781852000974

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 221pp

Some amazing miracles occurred during the Second World War and undoubtedly this book chronicles one of them: In 1940 the author’s mother and father fled with their ten children away from the German invaders of Belgium. Against all odds and despite the awful trauma of war, they eventually all arrived safely in England. 

Marguerite, the second eldest of the ten children, tells the story of her family and childhood leading up to these events in pre-war Belgium. Told with the simplicity of a teenager this was a life of happiness and wonder, surrounded by loving parents and a growing number of brothers and sisters. 

It was this expanding family that made her father, David, who was English, a little eccentric and married to a Belgian lady, look for a suitable home. He eventually found a 300 year old house in the village of Andrimont. During his exploits at completely rebuilding the interior he left young Marguerite in some doubt whether there would ever be a house! But a house there was.

With the arrival of war it was this impulsive and yet determined character which was necessary when the family became refugees, fleeing from the German gestapo and leaving everyone and everything they had known behind them.
This story of innocent childhood, leading up to the dramatic escape from the German invaders, has already been serialised over 28 episodes on BBC Radio Newcastle and repeated due to popular demand, with BBC Radio Four giving it the ‘Best From Local Stations’ award.

ISBN: 9781852000998 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 195pp 

18 photographs & maps

Set in the South Wales village of Skewen and its surrounds in the turbulent third and fourth decades of the 19th century, this novel provides a fascinating glimpse of the social upheaval of those times.

Fighting against odds Iestyn Bowen, miner's son, fulfils his ambition of becoming a marine engineer through employment from the age of eleven in a small shipbuilding yard on the River Neath. The owner, Thomas Price, comes to see him as a future son-in-law and welcomes Iestyn's courtship of his daughter Megan.

His career and real affection for Megan, however, conflicts with his love of Mary Osborne, a girl from a Roman Catholic family, whose brother Robert is, like Mr Price's clerk Gareth Williams (Iestyn's friend and suitor to Iestyn's sister Bronwen), an active leader of an embryo Worker's Association. They are both also supporters of the Chartist movement and the ''Rebeccas' who are campaigning militantly against the tollgate charges.

More a victim of circumstance and the self-interest of others than his own failings, Iestyn becomes involved in a tollgate riot in which the tollkeeper is murdered. Eluding arrest he escapes aboard an outward steamship, originally built in Mr Price's yard.

His hurried escape is aided by both Megan and Mary coming together to help. But who is the girl beside him on the ship as it leaves?

ISBN: 9781852000936 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 270pp

This story follows the lives of two young girls from being school-friends to joining the WRNS and Land Army during the Second World War. 

Ginnie joins the WRNS, where she is drafted to Chatham and falls in love with a young Irishman, Lieutenant Kevin O’Sullivan. He is on board a minesweeper; a dangerous assignment which will eventually lead to tragedy for his family and Ginnie. 

Anita trains for the Land Army and has a disastrous love affair with American serviceman Ricky Dorado. She is going to have his baby but he has disappeared and cannot marry her anyway. The birth of the baby causes terrible friction at home and Anita has to leave. 

At the end of the war Ginnie is demobbed and contemplates the idea of becoming a teacher. Visiting her old school she meets a new young man. Whilst, via Ginnie’s introduction, Anita falls in love with Kevin’s brother, Patrick. 

The end is, in a way, a new beginning for both girls; as was the case for so many following the last days of the Second World War. Their story captures the very essence of life in 1940s Britain, when it was very much ‘a waiting game’.

ISBN: 9781852000929 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 195pp

In the early 1900s, Polly Pascoe awaits the return from America of her special childhood friend, Joss Renfree, with growing anticipation . . . . 

In their childhood young Polly and Joss lived next door to each other with their families. The two isolated adjoining cottages were just outside the busy town of Penryn in Cornwall, and although Joss was older their friendship became deep. However, Joss’s studies at Camborne School of Mines brought him into contact with the attractive Clementine due Cane, whom he subsequently married before leaving to make his fortune in America. 

Polly was heart-broken over Joss’s marriage, but grew to accept it and she married Edwin Pendleton, owner of a large granite quarry in Penryn. They are very happy together but fail to produce the baby which they so desire. 

Concluding that she will not become pregnant, Polly starts a dress shop with her friend, Lottie, who is Joss’s sister. This is a daring enterprise for two women during the early part of the twentieth century and it takes real determination for Polly to set up and run the business. 

. . . . But Joss’s return with wife and son, sparks a new forbidden flame in Polly and provokes one particular encounter which changes their fate forever. 

It is a story of love and passion tormented by restraint and faithfulness, set in a period when fidelity and honour were paramount.

ISBN: 9781852000912 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: paperback 

Length: 400pp

Colin Edwards has picked fifty favourite British sports personalities and compiled detailed biographies based on the chronological order of events throughout their careers.

The career records after each biography are some of the most detailed likely to be found, showing achievements from schools to youth through to senior level, from county/area to national and international honours.

This is a book which cannot fail to interest enthusiasts of sport as it is full of names which have become synonymous with Britain at its sporting best - Sir Roger Bannister, Gareth Edwards, Jimmy Greaves, Ian Botham, Bobby Moore, Stirling Moss, Torvill and Dean, Tessa Sanderson and many, many more. . .

It is also probably the best reference anyone could have for any of the fifty personalities included.

Caricature drawings by artist Clive Wakfer add to the text of the book allowing each legend to be seen in sporting character.

ISBN: 9781852000813

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 275pp 

photos & drawings

My Darling Diary : A Wartime Journal - Vienna 1937-39, Falmouth 1939-44

Ingrid Jacoby was amongst 10,000 Jewish children brought to Britain just before the Second World War under the organised movement called 'Kindertransport' (children's transport). At the age of 12 she left Nazi-occupied Vienna with her sister Lieselotte, leaving behind her parents and friends, to arrive in Falmouth, Cornwall. 

In Vienna Ingrid had already started keeping a diary and she continued to do so on her arrival in England. This diary became her closest friend and confidant, set against the background of coping with a new language and strange people and surroundings.

She expresses her state of loneliness and her longing for her mother, whilst also recording events surrounding her life in Falmouth and the ongoing war in general. We are enticed to read on with each entry because of the honesty and forthrightness which only a diary can capture.

Ingrid's decision to let the Diary be published came after extracts had been read on BBC Radio 4 and she realised she wished to show her gratitude to those who were prepared to take in refugees during a time of rationing and austerity.

ISBN: 9781852000806 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 274pp 

Photos and illustrations

The Incurable Optimists: Chris and Dan Sandford of Ethiopia

This is an extraordinary biography of an Englishman and his wife, Dan and Chris Sandford, who spent more than fifty years in Ethiopia. 

Dan served in the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War and then took Chris to Ethiopia. There he followed several pursuits, eventually becoming a farmer and founding Mulu Farm, while Chris helped him on the farm, and brought up and taught a family of six. They formed a lasting friendship with the man who was to become Emperor Haile Selassie. 

Forced to leave Ethiopia at the time of the Italian invasion, they returned there during the Second World War Dan as leader of Mission 101 and then as adviser to the Emperor. Chris founded The English School, where children of all nationalities and creeds met and learnt in harmony, and still do. Even in retirement they continued to serve the land they loved by spearheading Community projects. Mulu Farm became a place where all, young and old, VIP and nonentity, could go and return refreshed. 

This is a story of challenges met with courage and optimism a tale where material wealth counted for nothing beside the treasures of family, friends and fun. It is a biography of two people who loved Ethiopia and its Emperor, and also an informative account of the history of Ethiopia.

ISBN: 9781852000509

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 264pp 

photos & drawings