Until that fateful day in 1970 when the Royal Navy abolished the rum ration, the one thing that every Royal Navy sailor could rely on was that ‘Up Spirits’ would be piped at approximately 11:45 each day . ‘Tot-time’ was the cue for plenty of banter and lamp-swinging, but also for baffling negotiations as to who might have sippers, wets, gulpers, halfers, sandy bottoms, or their share of ‘Queen’s’. With the same humour, affection and story-telling ability that characterised his earlier nava...

Having survived the notorious Training Establishment HMS Ganges and ‘cut his teeth’ onboard HMS Bermuda, Peter Broadbent believed that he was equipped for anything the Royal Navy could throw at him.For 18 incident-filled months (1962-64) he ‘did his bit’ onboard HMS Lincoln caught up in the Malaysian Crisis, on the other side of the world. For the young sailor, this meant visiting every corner of the Far East from Singapore, Hong Kong and Osaka, to Manila, Sandakan and Lankawi. The nature ...

In 1961 the Royal Navy came up with a brilliant idea: why not take all its rogues, thugs and malcontents and place them on board its flagship, HMS Bermuda, where hard work and continuous exercising would keep them out of trouble?Joining this colourful crew was sixteen-year-old Peter Broadbent, fresh out of his year’s training at HMS Ganges, and drafted to ‘Bermadoo’ to make up the ship’s quota of Junior Seamen. Initially he lived a cocooned existence in the Juniors’ mess, with a community ...

Gosport, 1860. Felix Wild has lived on the streets and on his wits for all his young life. He’s been a mudlark at The Hard, eaten tallow when there was nothing else to be had, picked oakum in Forton Gaol, and acquired a skill for ‘tup-tup-tupping’ from the women of Haslar. He has no family, no idea of how old he might be, and has never heard of Christmas. But he has one remarkable talent: he can make a perfect drawing, from memory, of anything that he has seen.Saved from a further spell in...

It's 2008 and Jeremy Stubbles (or 'Stubbsy' as he's better known) is due to turn 30. Born and bred in Cowes, Isle of Wight, he lives a bachelor existence in his Art Deco flat overlooking the Solent. He is the proud owner of a floor-shaking Wurlitzer Bubbler jukebox, a retro king-sized water-bed, last season's Musto jacket and a Ford Scorpio that is lovingly valeted as soon as the suggestion of a speck of dust mars its finish. Despite these enviable assets, he never seems to quite succeed i...

When Peter Broadbent entered HMS Ganges, the toughest training establishment for young recruits to the Royal Navy, he was a naive 15-year-old Yorkshire schoolboy, entranced with the idea of seeing the world, proud of his drainpipe trousers and DA hairstyle, and eager to meet girls. In other words, he was a ‘Nozzer’ - a raw and unsuspecting recruit. When he emerged 386 days later it was as a prospective ‘Dabtoe’, not quite a fully trained Seaman, but well on the way. This funny and vivid me...

Felix Wild is approaching his seventeenth birthday, if the horse doctor who originally estimated his age by examining his teeth is correct. He still has the remarkable ability to memorise and draw anything he has seen, but is now looking for a fresh challenge. Studying navigation appeals to him but fate - in the shape of Admiral Millinhall-Slice - intervenes, and he is whisked away from the comfortable home of Mr and Mrs Kettle on a dangerous mission into the heart of the American Civil Wa...

In H.M.S. Marlborough Will Enter Harbour, an old sloop, homeward bound, is torpedoed, leaving her guns out of action, more than three-quarters of her crew dead, and radio contact impossible. But her valiant captain steadfastly refuses to surrender his ship... In Leave Cancelled, an army officer and his young wife concentrate their passionate love into twenty-four hours, knowing that it might be their last chance... And in Heavy Rescue, an old soldier, having live...

David Mason graduated from the Australian National University with a law degree and an honours degree. Like those around him, he could easily have settled for a life of share portfolios, good suits, new cars and big houses. But David wanted more – he wanted a challenge, an adventure, something beyond the ordinary that would test him physically and mentally. He looked around to see what he could do. Working in an open-cut mine . . . done that. Running a marathon . . . hmm, not hard enough. ...

Frontline offers an insight into the life of just one soldier out of the many thousands in the British Infantry deployed to Afghanistan. These modern day heroes risk their lives on a daily basis to help bring peace to a troubled country.Some of these soldiers are fresh out of school, or college, and within a few months find themselves in a war zone fighting for their lives.The book gives a candid account of life on the front line. The highs and the lows of fighting a war tho...

The biography of a British battleship, from an author with " a facility for rendering nonfiction into a narrative as brisk and readable as a novel" ( HistoryNet).The Second World War battleship HMS Rodney achieved lasting fame for her role in destroying the pride of Hitler's navy, the mighty Bismarck, in a thrilling duel. The Rodney, carrying the largest guns ever mounted in a British warship, finally succeeded i...

A first-hand account of World War I by a nineteen-year-old Englishman who led a platoon into the carnage of the Battle of the Somme.While researching his excellent earlier book: Veterans of World War I, author Richard Van Emden encountered a fascinating personality of that long-ago conflict. After witnessing German naval attacks on British civilians, Norman Collins enlisted in the Seaforth Highlanders of the 51st Highland Division, even though he was under...