Between 1945 and 1963 over 2 1⁄2 million 18-year-olds were called up for national service. Alf Townsend was one of them, and here he tells his story – the highs and lows of life as a lowly Aircraftman Second Class in the early 1950s. Before national service intervened Alf was 'heading down the criminal road at top speed', having grown up in a North London slum where money was short and local villains were revered.Bad Lads is a warts and all account of Alf ...

Forty years ago Alf Townsend passed The Knowledge - after 14,000 miles on a moped round central London. Since then he has covered millions of miles in his taxi. This book includes a selection of his extraordinary and hilarious tales of everyday life as a cabbie, in which we meet Mr Whippy and Violent Pete, Bread Roll Mick and the Motorway Mouse, Claude the Bastard and the mysterious Mr X. Alf also examines the history of cab-driving in the capital - including the variety o...

A unique memoir of wartime life from a child's perspective.

The advent of the charabanc to the working classes - especially those slaving in the cotton mills in the North - seemed to evoke a special kind of freedom that not many had ever experienced before. They could save their pennies every week with their local working men's clubs and join all their mates on a lovely day out at Blackpool or Scarborough and escape the drudgery. The workers didn't get paid for any holidays, so a day out in a 'Chara' was all they got. It wasn't until the late sixti...

Jeremy Clarkson, shares his opinions on just about everything in The World According to Clarkson.Jeremy Clarkson has seen rather more of the world than most. He has, as they say, been around a bit. And as a result, he's got one or two things to tell us about how it all works - and being Jeremy Clarkson he's not about to voice them quietly, humbly and without great dollops of humour.In The World According to Clarkson, he reveals why it is t...

'Tender, evocative' TLS 'Richly engaging' Spectator A Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A compelling read, beautifully crafted and sensitively writ...

**A 2021 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Critical/Biographical“Jacqueline Winspear has created a memoir of her English childhood that is every bit as engaging as her Maisie Dobbs novels, just as rich in character and detail, history and humanity. Her writing is lovely, elegant and welcoming.”—Anne LamottThe New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series offers a deeply personal memoir of her family’s resilience in the face of war and privation.**...

** Saga Magazine 'Life Story' competition winner**From the streets of London to the Welsh countryside, evacuee Iris Simantel tells of her desperate search for somewhere to belong in Far From the East End.Born in 1938 under threat of looming war, Iris spent her early years playing in the rubble of bombed buildings in Dagenham by day and cowering in a dusty shelter at night. But the hardships of poverty and the dreaded Blitz could not match the pain ...

VOLUME THREE OF SPIKE MILLIGAN'S LEGENDARY MEMOIRS IS A HILARIOUS, SUBVERSIVE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF WW2'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express'Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics, throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes' Daily Mail______________'It's all over, Von Arnheim has surrendered and he's very angry.' 'This could mean wa...

The much-loved TV star Fern Britten tells her story for the first time in her Sunday Times bestselling memoir.For years now, Fern Britton has been widely loved as the presenter ofReady Steady Cook, and, more recently, co-presenter of This Morning with Philip Schofield. Never one to shy away from a good laugh or cry on national TV, she has none-the-less never talked about herself to the public, preferring to keep her private life private. Her warmt...

Andy Nicholls is known to every football intelligence officer in Britain. For twenty-five years, he was one of the most active hooligans in the country, a leading figure among the violent followers of Everton FCClassified as a Category C thug, the worst kind, he amassed more than twenty arrests and has been deported from Belgium, Iceland and Sweden. His terrace fanzine was closed down by the authorities and he was banned from every ground in the UK.Revealing the truth behin...

Since the early 1990s Aston Villa Hardcore has been arguably the most prolific football hooligan gangs in the UK. Described by the police and press as one of the worst two hooligan firms on the England international scene. There are currently 80 Villa Hardcore members subject to football banning orders and sentences totalling over 80 years have been handed out to participants in a series of high profile incidents.Gang member Michael Lutwyche reveals how Villa Hardcore - led by Cate...