British Memoirs

On Valentine’s Day 1988, twenty-year-old Lynette White was brutally murdered in a dark corner of Cardiff’s world-famous, and infamous, Tiger Bay. Stigmatised by a bad reputation, the area was on the brink of major redevelopment which would change the historic community forever. South Wales Police launched its biggest murder hunt to date, and within weeks detectives released a photofit of a prime suspect seen outside the murder scene, his hands covered in blood. A white man. But as the months passed by and no arrest was made, the police came under inevitable pressure.

Now with an extra chapter, the beginning of the sequel Our Little Piece of Paradise. A warm-hearted, autobiographical story about the location and lifestyle in a small village in the Algarve, as seen through the eyes of Karen, and her husband Nick, who made the move seeking a quieter, more serene way of life. What lurks in the shadows of paradise, however, is a life-changing illness she has struggled with in the past and now comes to the fore. They have made Portugal their home. Will they be able to navigate the health system and succeed in getting her the urgent operation needed, to ...

Doyenne of royal writers, Helen Cathcart takes the listener on a unique journey from infancy up to the third decade of Her Majesty's reign, highlighting the Queen's influence upon her friends and Household, and their reciprocal influence upon the Sovereign. Along the way we meet the royal relatives, intimate acquaintances, and trusted officials who have supported and guided Her Majesty from early childhood through to heiress presumptive to the throne and ultimately as reigning monarch.

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 a prematurely aged Chips descending into poor health but still socially active and able to turn a pointed phrase about the political events that swirl around him and the great and the good with whom he mingles.

In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men.

The British Secret Service has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created 100 years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of James Bond and John le Carre. MI6 provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the bestselling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation—destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England—and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives.

Maximum Volume offers a glimpse into the mind, the music, and the man behind the sound of the Beatles. George Martin's working-class childhood and musical influences profoundly shaped his early career in the BBC's Classical Music department and as head of the EMI Group's Parlophone Records. Out of them flowed the genius behind his seven years producing the Beatles' incredible body of work, including such albums as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road.

Philip—elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous, sometimes irascible—is the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide.' Who was he? What was he really like? What is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumors of affairs? This is the final portrait of an unexpected and often much-misunderstood figure. It is also the portrait of a remarkable marriage that endured for more than seventy years.

By the time of his death, Wellington had been prime minister twice, a shrewd personal advisor to four British monarchs, and one of the nation's most prominent politicians for three decades. Despite his nearly four decades of peacetime service in and out of politics, Wellington has remained one of the titans of the 19th century because of one June day in 1815. Then, as now, the duke of Wellington is best remembered for defeating Napoleon in the famous battle of Waterloo.

In this eye-opening companion to seasons 2 and 3 of Netflix’s acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer - and the show’s historical consultant - Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political, and personal moments and their effects - not only on the royal family but also on the world around them.

Who was Jimmy Savile? More than anything he was a list of contradictions. He was a practising Catholic who raped young boys and girls and had sex with corpses. He was a God-fearing believer who participated in satanic rituals. He was an unprecedentedly generous charity fundraiser who was too tight to buy his own meals. He was a friend of princes and dukes who ate bacon sandwiches at his local greasy spoon. He was a peace activist who tied up troublemakers in his nightclubs and had them brutally beaten. He was a fairy godfather who hated children.

On today's world stage, there is one leader who stands apart from the rest. Queen Elizabeth II has seen more of the planet and its people than any other head of state and has engaged with the world like no other monarch in modern history. The iconic monarch never ventured further than the Isle of Wight until the age of 20 but since then has now visited over 130 countries across the globe in the line of duty, acting as diplomat, hostess, and dignitary as the world stage has changed beyond recognition.

t her vivid life, Elizabeth I was the center of a complicated web of political intrigue that made up the Elizabethan constitution. Elizabeth Jenkins, in her classic biography, reveals the woman behind the skillful politician, showing her belief in personal sacrifice to secure peace for the country she loved more than any man.

William Wilberforce is chiefly remembered as the reformer who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade in England. He was at the heart of British politics for over 40 years during the inflammatory times of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. He lived just long enough to see the passage of the Act to emancipate all slaves in British territories.

Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division is the last word on the band that ended with the suicide of Ian Curtis in Macclesfield on May 18, 1980. It weaves together interviews conducted by the author, but never used in the making of the film Joy Division, which told the story of the band in their own words, as well as those of their peers, collaborators, and contemporaries.

In this fascinating and in-depth biography, popular British writer and cultural historian John Higgs digs into the story behind the end of one of the most popular bands of the late twentieth century. The band members themselves, when asked in interviews, were never able to satisfactorily explain their behavior, but looked haunted every time it came up. With his characteristically creative mind, Higgs leads listeners on a journey to understand “a story that no one knows they are in—least of all the main characters.”

This collection of humorous columns for a rural parish magazine reflects life all year round in a small English village in the beautiful Cotswolds countryside where the author has lived since 1991. Easy to dip into, this light-hearted volume provides entertaining reading for anyone interested in modern rural community life and the real-life equivalent of the fictional village of Wendlebury Barrow, the parish that is the setting for Debbie Young's fiction books. It is the sequel to All Part of the Charm, a collection of nostalgic essays and parish magazine columns. Debbie Young also writes...

Arthur Hart-Synnot, a third-generation British officer, was sent to Japan in 1904 to learn the language of Britain's newest ally. Masa Suzuki, a beautiful Japanese woman scorned because of an early divorce, worked at the Tokyo Officers' Club. The two fell immediately in love and conceived a son before Arthur was whisked away by the military during World War I. Though Arthur would only see Masa little, he supported his Japanese family and kept alive the hope that he and Masa could live together blissfully.

To Britain's criminal underworld, Freddie Foreman is the Godfather. Held responsible for the gangland killings of Ginger Marks and Frank 'The Mad Axeman' Mitchell, he was the punisher to those who broke the underworld's strict code of conduct. Foreman's dramatic kidnap and arrest for Britain's biggest cash robbery made headlines around the world, yet this daring raid was just the peak of the safe-blowing, bank-robbing career that spanned decades.