Notting Hill has inspired a large number of books and has often made national news – though not always for the right reasons. It has forever been an area of contrast between rich and poor, and has undergone almost constant change since it was developed from farmland in the mid-nineteenth century to today's urban landscape. Roger Rogowski's book records the memories of people who lived in working-class Notting Hill in their own words, before the substantial changes of the 1...

Do you remember Pathé News?Taking the train to the seaside?The purple stains of iodine on the knees of boys in short trousers?Knitted bathing costumes?Then the chances are you were born in or around 1950. To the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age.But for those born around then, this era of childhood feels like yesterday. This delightful collection...

A hilarious compendium of all that's weird and wonderful about life in the British Isles - the eccentric, bizarre bureaucracy and outright oddity reported over the last year by the nation's newspapers, including: Guardian headline, 'Man with false leg hit with toilet lid.'; The Astrological Magazine, 'announces that it is to cease due to unforeseen circumstances.' Jack Crossley spent some 40 years in Fleet Street and has compiled this laugh-out-loud collection of anecdotes and strange goin...

Alf Wight, a modest Scottish writer, better known as James Herriot, wrote books that became worldwide best sellers, films, audiobooks, and a much-loved television show. In The Life of a Country Vet, Graham Lord has written a detailed and affectionate biography of this remarkable man. Lord carefully documents Wight's life, beginning with his childhood in Glasgow and his years in veterinary college. Following his development as a writer, the source of his pen name, and his struggles to get p...

The Blitz had made many families in the East End of London homeless. One solution was to erect prefabs on fields and open spaces to give temporary accommodation to those who had been bombed out. It was in one of these 'modern' boxes that young Norman Jacobs grew up through the 1950s and 1960s. In a lively, detailed and humorous picture of a postwar Hackney childhood, Norman takes us back to an age of rationing, bomb sites, street markets, colourful characters and camaraderie. And in remini...

A unique look into the childhood experiences of Gervase Phinn in Road to the Dales.Gervase tells of a life full of happiness, conversation, music and books shared with his three siblings, mother and father. This book is a snapshot of growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s - reminisce with Gervase, and share in his personal journey - of school days and holidays as well as his tentative steps into the adult world.Devour numerous uproarious stories including the inciden...

On the way to a show in Skipton, in North Yorkshire, I noticed a road sign to a town called Keighley. So later, during the show, I mentioned this, asking the audience 'Is that your rival town?' And the room went chillingly quiet, until one woman called out with understated menace, 'Keighley is a sink of evil.'Based on his award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, Mark Steel's ‘In Town’, is a celebration of the quirks of small town life in a country of increasingly homogenized high streets....

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...

This is the true story of a little child called Patrick, who was one of five little brothers that came through, what seemed like a strange world full of bombs dropping, causing big fires and total destruction on a massive scale, every morning I would wake up to see new Wendy houses to play in not realizing someone lived there the day before, and the houses were still burning it was nice and warm, food was so scarce it was rationed so much so we had a plot of land where the family tried to ...

Melvyn Bragg's first ever memoir - an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world. 'The best thing he's ever written . . . I loved it' Observer 'A memoir bursting with affection' Sunday TimesIn this elegiac and heartfelt memoir, Melvyn Bragg recreates his youth in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton: a working-class boy who expected to leave s...

A BIRMINGHAM BACKSTREET BOYHOOD is a fascinating, funny and poignant recollection of the experience of growing up in the slums of Nechells and Aston. All the harshness of daily life is remembered here by local author Graham Twist. Despite hard living condition and a distinct lack of money, a strong community spirit prevailed and families and neighbourhoods were close-knit. The womenfolk on particular took great pride in their homes, however humble, and scrubbed their front steps and swept ...

For almost 25 years, Tony Sullivan has been a member of some of the most violent gangs following Manchester City. He has also toured Britain and Europe as a professional 'grafter'. Sullivan ran with the Mayne Line Motorway Service Crew in the early 80s. Here he details how they gained a fearsome reputation nation-wide. From St James' Park to Upton Park, the Mayne Line ruled British football, the most fearsome football mob during, hooliganism's 'Golden Age'. Now, with his hooligan career at...