The author provides a broad view of the Southern Region and the steam engines employed in the last years before the diesel takeover. Bill Reed's superb colour photographs have made this possible.
Junction, the Beighton Branch and Sheffield District Railway
In the days when coal was king, an ambitious plan was laid for an east-to-west cross country rail route, connecting the Manchester Ship Canal at Warrington to a new dock near the small east coast village of Sutton-on-Sea. Grandly titled The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, history was to show that this line would reach neither ......
The young Lady Anne Clifford of Queen Elizabeth's Court became Countess of Dorset at the Court of King James, was robbed of her inheritance, widowed, became Countess of Pembroke at the Court of King Charles, a widow again, and beat them all to be the Lady Anne of great estates and fondest memory in the times of Oliver Cromwell and King Charles II.
From 'Neighbours' TV teen queen to Stock Aitken Waterman's megastar, the rise of Kylie Minogue to the top of the charts is one of the biggest smash hit success stories in pop music. Across 15 studio albums her transition from SexKylie (with help from Michael Hutchence) to IndieKylie (thanks to Nick Cave and Manic Street Preachers), then to ......
Georgian Britain, Imperial China and the Irishman Who Introduced Them
In 1793, George Macartney became Britain's first envoy to imperial China, and set off one of the greatest power shifts in history. The impasse that resulted from Macartney's refusal to agree to kowtow to the Emperor Qianlong causes great reverberations even today, and is still a source of tension between Beijing and the West.
This is the story of Elizabeth of Bohemia, James I's captivating but unfortunate daughter who was driven from the throne of Bohemia in 1620. Among the many men who championed her sorrowful fortunes, Lord Craven was the most faithful. Brave, wealthy and supremely generous, this latter-day knight-errant fought for her and supported her unstintingly.
This is the untold story of Lewis Chalmers, a Scottish mining capitalist who spent two decades chasing silver sixty miles south of the original Comstock Lode. In lengthy letters to friends and financiers in London, he chronicled his day-to-day struggles at multiple lodes in the mountains of Alpine County, California--from miners' strikes to ......
James VI & I had a series of notorious male favourites. These affairs were almost certainly sexual. They diminished the majesty of the monarchy and raised the spectre of a sodomitical court and effeminized nation. It is a story of political intrigue coloured by sodomy, pederasty, and gender instability as backdrop to the English Civil War.
