From the glamorous drivers on the great mainline locomotives to everyday commuters and trainspotting schoolboys, this collection of stories gives a glimpse into the lives of those who lived and worked in the steam era.
Following on from the hugely successful London's Strangest Tales, Tom Quinn plunges even deeper into the endlessly beguiling past of one of the world's greatest capitals, and once more unpicks the quirkiest tales that characterise London.Why would Winston Churchill ask to be lowered in a bucket into the sewers of London? Why is the name George so important to certain elitist London clubs? Why did the market for human teeth become such a booming industry? As with many old cities, a wealth of bizarre and astonishing tales makes up the history of London: stories ranging from the churches and streets of the city to the incredible actions of monarchs and mavericks.Inside these pages you will uncover the stories of a king who enjoyed cross-dressing and the schoolboys who played football with a pancake; you will learn which prestigious department store once sold cocaine over the counter and why Napoleon's nose is built into the structure of Admiralty Arch. More London's Strangest Tales promises to be an incredible collection of the weird and wonderful, a city guide proving once and for all that truth is stranger than fiction.Tom Quinn is the author of many titles including London’s Strangest Tales, Backstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's most Devoted Servant, and The Cook’s Tale: Life Below Stairs as it Really Was. He also writes occasional obituaries for the Times and edits Country Business magazine.
Presents the social history of post-war Britain, from 1945-1951, through hundreds of interviews and photography. This book draws on individual experiences to revive the struggles, the triumphs and the changes that took place in the years following the Second World War.
Tom Quinn charts the history of angling in art from its earliest beginnings in ancient Egypt, Greece and China, through the golden age in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the prolific artists of modern times.
Barking Mad taps into the British passion for dogs by bringing together a unique collection of extraordinary, touching and sometimes bizarre but true stories covering sporting dogs (and hounds) military mascots, eccentric companions, war heroes and Royal dogs.
Here are stories of the Midland and Great Northern Railway - known to its staff as the 'Muddle and Get Nowhere Railway' - where drivers were not unknown to stop their trains near Sandringham to help themselves to the odd rabbit from a poacher's snare, and of young engine cleaners' pranks that blew up the cabin stove by dropping a detonator down its chimney. And, above all, here is the subtle, sooty, hot and sweaty art of firing and driving a great steam locomotive, with its glowing firebox, Yorkshire Hard steam coal, and gleaming brass. For anyone who looks at a lovingly restored steam engine on one of Britain's preserved lines and wonders what it was like in the days when such great beasts would have been hard at work, More Tales of the Old Railwaymen will be a wonderfully nostalgic evocation of a vanished world.
A quirky collection of true stories from the stranger side of the world's railways, featuring weird weather conditions, audacious robberies, hair- raising accidents, vanishing passengers, an infestation of maggots and a mysterious missing mummy.
For as long as the British monarchy has existed, royal children have been brought up in ways that seem bizarre and eccentric to the rest of us. From medieval wet nurses to today's Norland nannies and elite boarding schools, princes and princesses have endured parental abandonment for centuries as their parents farmed out childrearing duties to paid staff. And as this marvelous romp of a book demonstrates, dysfunctional childhood experiences produce emotionally damaged adults, as evidenced by Edward VIII - who was horribly mistreated by his nanny - and his marriage to his substitute mother figure, Mrs Simpson; by alcoholic party girl Princess Margaret; and by rebellious Harry and his desperate desire to adopt Meghan Markle's world view, to the detriment of his relationship with his brother. Interweaving exclusive testimonies from palace staff with historical sources, Tom Quinn also uncovers outrageous tales of royal children misbehaving, often hilariously - from Edward VII smashing up his schoolroom to the Queen mischievously pranking unsuspecting visitors with dog biscuits to Prince William pinching a teacher's bottom. Amusing and shocking in equal measure, Gilded Youth examines how the royal family has clung to outmoded traditions that centre on emotional coldness and detachment, and how, when it comes to children, the British royal family is still living in the Dark Ages.
Born in 1910 Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum. At the age of fifteen she left the noise and squalor of Hoxton and started work as a live-in maid at a house in the West End.
George Orwell once said that the British love a really good murder. He might have added that the only thing the British love more than a good murder is a really good scandal, and best of all are the sexual and political scandals that take place behind the gilded doors of Britain's royal palaces.
