Portillo's Hidden History of Britain

Portillo's Hidden History of Britain PDF Author: Michael Portillo
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 178929049X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
A compelling and wonderfully evocative history of Britain through the stories of its 'lost' or abandoned buildings.

Portillo's Hidden History of Britain

Portillo's Hidden History of Britain PDF Author: Michael Portillo
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 178929049X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
A compelling and wonderfully evocative history of Britain through the stories of its 'lost' or abandoned buildings.

Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations

Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations PDF Author: Simon Jenkins
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241978998
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Discover the architectural gems that are Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations in this Sunday Times top 10 bestseller 'This is a cracker . . . a beautiful book' Chris Evans It is the scene for our hopeful beginnings and our intended ends, and the timeless experiences of coming and going, meeting, greeting and parting. It is an institution with its own rituals and priests, and a long-neglected aspect of Britain's architecture. And yet so little do we look at the railway station. Simon Jenkins has travelled the length and breadth of Great Britain, from Waterloo to Wemyss Bay, Betws-y-Coed to Beverley, to select his hundred best railway stations. Blending his usual insight and authority with his personal reflections and experiences - including his founding the Railway Heritage Trust - the foremost expert on our national heritage deftly reveals the history, geography, design and significance of each of these glories. Beautifully illustrated with colour photographs throughout, this joyous exploration of our social history shows the station's role in the national imagination; champions the engineers, architects and rival companies that made them possible; and tells the story behind the triumphs and follies of these very British creations. These are the marvellous, often undersung places that link our nation, celebrated like never before. 'However spectacular the book's photographs, it's the author's prowess as a phrase-maker that keeps you turning the pages' The Times 'An uplifting exploration of our social history' Guardian

Eleven Minutes Late

Eleven Minutes Late PDF Author: Matthew Engel
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 0230740413
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Britain gave railways to the world, yet its own network is the dearest (definitely) and the worst (probably) in Western Europe. Trains are deeply embedded in the national psyche and folklore - yet it is considered uncool to care about them. For Matthew Engel the railway system is the ultimate expression of Britishness. It represents all the nation's ingenuity, incompetence, nostalgia, corruption, humour, capacity for suffering and even sexual repression. To uncover its mysteries, Engel has travelled the system from Penzance to Thurso, exploring its history and talking to people from politicians to platform staff. Along the way Engel ('half-John Betjeman, half-Victor Meldrew') finds the most charmingly bizarre train in Britain, the most beautiful branch line, the rudest railwayman, and - after a quest lasting decades - an Individual Pot of Strawberry Jam. Eleven Minutes Late is both a polemic and a paean, and it is also very funny.

Steaming to Victory

Steaming to Victory PDF Author: Michael Williams
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409051897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
In the seven decades since the darkest moments of the Second World War it seems every tenebrous corner of the conflict has been laid bare, prodded and examined from every perspective of military and social history. But there is a story that has hitherto been largely overlooked. It is a tale of quiet heroism, a story of ordinary people who fought, with enormous self-sacrifice, not with tanks and guns, but with elbow grease and determination. It is the story of the British railways and, above all, the extraordinary men and women who kept them running from 1939 to 1945. Churchill himself certainly did not underestimate their importance to the wartime story when, in 1943, he praised ‘the unwavering courage and constant resourcefulness of railwaymen of all ranks in contributing so largely towards the final victory.’ And what a story it is. The railway system during the Second World War was the lifeline of the nation, replacing vulnerable road transport and merchant shipping. The railways mobilised troops, transported munitions, evacuated children from cities and kept vital food supplies moving where other forms of transport failed. Railwaymen and women performed outstanding acts of heroism. Nearly 400 workers were killed at their posts and another 2,400 injured in the line of duty. Another 3,500 railwaymen and women died in action. The trains themselves played just as vital a role. The famous Flying Scotsman train delivered its passengers to safety after being pounded by German bombers and strafed with gunfire from the air. There were astonishing feats of engineering restoring tracks within hours and bridges and viaducts within days. Trains transported millions to and from work each day and sheltered them on underground platforms at night, a refuge from the bombs above. Without the railways, there would have been no Dunkirk evacuation and no D-Day. Michael Williams, author of the celebrated book On the Slow Train, has written an important and timely book using original research and over a hundred new personal interviews. This is their story.

The 50 Greatest Train Journeys of the World

The 50 Greatest Train Journeys of the World PDF Author: Anthony Lambert
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785780662
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Whether you're on the Orient Express or the Inverness to Wick and Thurso route traversing some of the wildest country in Britain, train travel affords a vision of the world like no other. From the modest line through North Yorkshire's Esk Valley to the Trans-Siberian; from a narrow-gauge web of lines in the Harz Mountains to the coast-tocoast journey through the mountains of Corsica, acclaimed travel writer Anthony Lambert presents an unmissable selection for any traveller who loves the journey as much as the destination. Here is a carefully chosen, wide-ranging selection of train journeys with character, sublime scenery and a real sense of history.

The Times History of Britain's Railways

The Times History of Britain's Railways PDF Author: Julian Holland
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 9780008135348
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Follow the development, decline and later revival of Britain s iconic railways with bestselling railway author Julian Holland. Discover the fascinating history of our remarkable railway heritage through expert commentary, stunning photographs and archive material from a lifetime of railway research."

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain PDF Author: Leah Price
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159548
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

Great British Railway Journeys

Great British Railway Journeys PDF Author: Charlie Bunce
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007413211
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
The Sunday Times Bestseller A glorious insight into Britain over the last 150 years – its history, landscape and people – from the window of Britain’s many and magnificent railway journeys.

Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On

Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On PDF Author: Julian Holland
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
ISBN: 1446358305
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Julian Holland's Dr Beeching's Axe 50 Years On is a unique memorial to all that was lost following the publication of the ‘Beeching Report’ on 27 March 1963. Uniquely, the author has tried to include every railway line that was closed as a result of the ‘Beeching Report’, and more. They are all shown on Map 9 in Part 2 of the ‘Report’ and have been annotated for clarity at the beginning of each regional chapter in the book. Needless to say it is not plain sailing: there are lines that were marked for closure on the maps but were closed before publication of the ‘Report’; there are lines that were not originally on Beeching’s original hit list but which were closed anyway; there are lines that were originally marked down for closure but which were fortunately reprieved. There are even one or two which seem to have not existed at all! The author has included them all.

The Times Mapping the Railways

The Times Mapping the Railways PDF Author: David Spaven
Publisher: Collins
ISBN: 9780007435999
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Follow the development, decline and revival of Britain's railways through a unique collection of old and new maps, commentaries and photographs. The story is traced from early 'waggonways' through the steam era to today's diesel and electric railways.