Haslar was Britain’s best-loved hospital. That’s not an idle boast. Even Queen Victoria said: ‘It would be difficult to think of a hospital more loved than the Royal Hospital Haslar.’Known for its wards with gleaming floors, immaculate bed-linen and dedicated staff, it served the Royal Navy for nearly 250 years, eventually becoming a Tri-Service hospital and then admitting civilians. Little wonder, then, that when it was threatened with closure, 22,000 people took to the streets of Gosport...

After the runaway success of You Couldn't Make It Up, Jack Crossley returns with his latest cornucopia of wonderful anecdotes and strange goings-on from around the British Isles. In his many years as a newspaper journalist, Jack Crossley has collected literally thousands of these strange but true newspaper items. They are stories that you wouldn't believe if they weren't written down in black and white. You Really Couldn't Make It Up is a wonderful collection of irresistible whimsy, a test...

The London borough of Enfield is full of haunted locations, but only a handful of them have ever been featured in books. Haunted Enfield brings together all of the stories, legends and documented evidence of the supernatural from around the borough into one volume. Who are the ghostly figures that roam the corridors of Trent Park mansion, Forty Hall and Myddelton House? Why does the shade of a little girl haunt the King and Tinker pub? Where does the black coach ...

Blood and Granite is a chronicle of the most notorious homicides committed in Aberdeen over the last hundred years. Written by Norman Adams, a journalist who reported on many of the chilling crimes he now recalls so vividly, it is compelling reading for those who are too young to remember - and those who cannot forget. All are human tragedies from the dark side of life, including: • The grudge that ended in death in an East End pub when butcher James Harrow brutally stabbed two workmates i...

'Mattress Falls Off Truck Into Kidderminster Road'... 'Man Stole Tortoise To Pay For Booze'... 'Aquatic Centre Roof Sag Explained'...Every week Britain's local newspapers bring their investigative skills to stories of vital historical importance. While global conflicts rage, the local paper looks closer to home to the events that really matter.These can be as diverse as animal news ('Smug Swans Attack Dalmatian'), human peril ('Man Found Nailed To Bench'), domestic crisis ('O...

Belfast 1972. It s the bloodiest year of the Northern Irish Troubles and sixteen-year-old Eimear O'Callaghan, a Catholic schoolgirl in West Belfast, bears witness to it all in her diary. What follows is a window into the daily life of an ordinary teenager coming of age in extraordinary times. The immediacy of the diary entries are complemented with the author's mature reflections written forty years later. The result is poignant, shocking, wryly funny, sometimes prophetic, and above all, e...

This is the untold story of Liverpool's children in the Second World War. Whilst everyone is familiar with the tales of evacuees who were rushed out of the cities once the bombs started falling, many of us are unaware that many stayed behind, either by choice or necessity, as the city of their childhood disintegrated and burned around them. In the words of those who experienced the Liverpool Blitz first-hand, we hear of their adventures and misadventures, the fun ...

"Stunning photographs" and firsthand accounts propel a book that "brings together the memories of more than 200 child survivors of the Blitz" ( Daily Mail).It was not just the upheaval caused by evacuation and the blitzes that changed a generation's childhood, it was how war pervaded every aspect of life. From dodging bombs by bicycle and patrolling the parish with the vicar's WWI pistol, to post air raid naps in school and being carried out of the rubble ...

Between 1959 and 1965, eight prostitutes were murdered in West London by a serial killer. These murders were the most notorious unsolved crimes of the twentieth century. The killer's motive and identity were the subject of endless speculation by the media, who dubbed him 'Jack the Stripper'. Links to the Profumo scandal, boxer Freddie Mills and the notorious Kray twins were rumoured. By the time the body of the eighth victim was found in February 1965, a massive police operation was underw...

From the well-known to the never-before published, Haunted Barnsley documents a vast array of hauntings, spectres and ghost folklore from all over Barnsley and the surrounding area. The authors have personally investigated many of the haunted locations featured in the book, and share their first-hand experiences alongside the histories and myths. Including haunted local landmarks such as the Mill of Black Monks and the Monk Bretton Priory, and detailing the storie...

'I went to the public baths and after I undressed I could hear someone whistling. I looked round to see if I could see anybody about, but I couldn't, so I got into the bath and lay back to relax. As soon as I did, of course, I looked up and saw a man putting in the glass windows that had been blown out the night before.' Joan Adams, LichfieldOn the night of 7 September 1940, bombs rained down on the defenceless and unprepared population of London for nine long hours. In No...

This is the powerful, intriguing and highly amusing story of Robin Oake, a Christian police officer who has found a strong, sustaining faith through the tough times. An entertaining, touching and often fdlaugh-out-loudfd account of an incredible life, laced with the infectious humour of a man who has really lived his life fully for God. Even the murder of his son, Stephen - a member of the Special Branch, Manchester didn't affect his view of policing as a great vocation - he urges us to ju...