Author: Freda Downie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
'Few contemporary poets have written with such sad luminosity, ' wrote George Szirtes of Freda Downie's posthumously published Collected Poems. This memoir, written in the last year of her life, is an equally sharp distillation of her melancholic sensibility. She recalls the high and low points of a poor, often disrupted English childhood, evoking people and places with the acute sensitivity of an isolated child and adolescent. As in her poems, a single figure moves through the world, as Szirtes has said, 'between yearning and disappointment, between fear and the desire of oblivion, listening and watching everything intently with a witty, even humorous attention'. Born in 1929, Freda Downie was an only child, and spent her early years living in a temporary wooden house on the outskirts of London at Shooters Hill, from where she roamed the lanes and woods of the nearby Kent countryside, or was taken out by her parents in her father's motorbike and sidecar. She assembled this book as an album with pictures, without showing it to anyone, concentrating in her writing on the most vivid and formative times in her early life, which included evacuation to Northampton-shire in September 1939, a return to London in time for the Battle of Britain and the Blitz; then the family's hazardous sea voyage from November 1941 to February 1942 around the Cape to her father's war work in Australia, and the return in 1944 across the Pacific and though the Panama Canal to a London under threat from the V1 and V2 bombs.
Author: Stuart Petre Brodie Mais
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
Author: Victoria Mather
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849015578
Category : English wit and humor
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
A brilliant new collection of stereotypes from the long running Daily Telegraph series.In this hilariously mordant, yet touchingly sympathetic, book, no aspect of English life is spared. Victoria Mather and Sue Macartney-Snape return in sparkling form to immortalize those very English characters and situations we come across every day. For all of us, there_ll always be an England, and, we_re afraid, this is it...Stereotypes include:The Post Office QueueThe Cheryl Cole WannabeThe Rebellious CongregationThe Pub Quiz TeamThe Comical Dog ShowThe Hateful HostsThe MilkmanThe Village OrganistThe Pet FuneralPraise for previous collections:_Mather and Macartney-Snape are not so much observers, more collectors, pinning their victims like butterflies in a display cabinet ... Very enjoyable._ - Michael Parkinson_With consummate skill the authors have once again skewered our national smugness_ - Nicky Haslam_A dazzling combination_ - Jilly Cooper
Author: David Rogers
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719069727
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
Diverse and often competing notions of "Englishness" have been critiqued by a variety of writers and critics who have become concerned about received visions of "Englishness" in the post-war period. An exciting and provocative collection of essays which registers the changes to Englishness since the 1950s, this book explores how Englishness has been revised for a variety of aesthetic and political purposes and makes a ground-breaking contribution to the contemporary debates in literary and cultural studies.
Author: Penny Starns
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750954728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
From May 1940, the Children's Overseas Reception Board began to move children to Australia, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand for their own safety during the Second World War. The scheme was extremely popular, and over 200,000 applications were made within just four months, while thousands of children were also sent to be privately evacuated overseas. The 'sea-vacs', as they became known, had a variety of experiences. After weeks at sea, they began new lives thousands of miles away. Letters home took up to twelve weeks to reach their destination, and many children were totally cut off from their families in the UK. While most were well cared for, others found their time abroad a miserable, difficult or frightening experience as they encountered homesickness, prejudice and even abuse. Using a range of primary source material, including diaries, letters and interviews, Penny Starns reveals in heart-breaking detail the unique and personal experiences of sea-vacs, as well as their surprising influence on international wartime policy in their power to elicit international sympathy and financial support for the British war effort.
Author: Elizabeth Knowles
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191578673
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 2401
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Book Description
This new collection offers a vivid picture of the world in the 21st century, against a backdrop of the landmark events leading up to it. From Catherine Tate and the Simpsons to Mother Teresa and Winston Churchill, Modern Quotations charts the ebbs and flows of popular culture as well as marking the key voices and watersheds for our time. An authoritative look-up reference, and an enjoyable source for browsing: the perfect gift. New quotations include: 'You tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.' [Homer Simpson] Matt Groening 'I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life.' Woody Guthrie 'I don't eat anything with a face.' Linda McCartney 'Never stop because you are afraid — you are never so likely to be wrong.' Fridtjof Nansen 'I watch where the cosmetics industry is going and then walk in the opposite direction.' Anita Roddick 'I wish I had invented blue jeans.' Yves Saint Laurent 'Fame vaporizes, money goes with the wind, and all that's left is character.' O. J. Simpson
Author: Terry Deary
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408194201
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Horrible Histories, named 'the outstanding children's non-fiction author of the 20th century' by Books For Keeps ____________________ Winner of the 2012 Sheffield Children's Book Award. This thrilling adventure from bestselling 'Horrible Histories' author Terry Deary brings the Blitz to life. It's 1940 and war is underway. In Sheffield, England, a brother and sister set out to solve a mystery, brazenly believing that the air-raid signals are only false alarms. In Dachau, Germany, two boys come up with a bold plan to bring an end to the war and help a Polish prisoner escape. But when the bombs falling on Sheffield become a reality, and the German boys' plan hurls them unwittingly into the midst of the action, the children's adventures swiftly become a terrifying fight to survive. ____________________ 'Bubbling with wit, language play and robust dialogue....just the right mix of ingredients to trigger young readers' interest in all things historical.' Books For Keeps
Author: Jean R. Freedman
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813184002
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
Few historical images are more powerful than those of wartime London. Having survived a constant barrage of German bombs, the city is remembered as an island of courage and defiance. These wartime images are still in use today to support a wide variety of political viewpoints. But how well do such descriptions match the memories of those who survived the blitz? Jean Freedman interviewed more than fifty people who remember London during the war, focusing on under-represented groups, including women, Jews, and working-class citizens. In addition she examined original propaganda, secret government documents, wartime diaries, and postwar memoirs. Of particular significance to Freedman were the contemporary music, theater, film, speeches, and radio drama used by the British government to shape public opinion and impart political messages. Such bits of everyday life are mentioned in virtually every civilian's experience of wartime London but their interpretations of them often clashed with their government's intentions. By exploring the differences between wartime documentation and postwar memory, oral and written artifacts, and the voices of the powerful and the obscure, Freedman illuminates the complex interactions between myth and history. She concludes that there are as many interpretations of what really happened during Britain's finest hour as there are people who remember it.
Author: Barbara Taylor Bradford
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795338643
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 662
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Book Description
From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of A Woman of Substance comes a billionaire tycoon’s lifelong search for the right woman’s love. Born in Berlin and orphaned by World War II, Maxim Westheim is left to fend for himself. With brains, charm, and grit, he forges a new identity for himself as Maximilian West, billionaire corporate raider. Max is ruthless in the business world, but his personal affairs are another story. His work takes him around the world to such opulent locales as London, New York, Paris, Venice, and Morocco, mingling with the world’s rich and powerful. But his marriages end in divorce, and even his mistresses can’t avoid heartbreak. When his life is shattered, he looks back at the women who have loved him and begins a search into his own soul which will lead to the one woman who holds the key to his heart. “Legions of readers undoubtedly will be satisfied by the romantic fortunes of the cultured, wealthy and powerful people whose lives she evokes.” —Publishers Weekly “[Bradford] is one of the world’s best at spinning yarns.” —The Guardian
Author: Ronald A.Fenn
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1463404395
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
The book is a compilation of short vignettes describing certain seen observations from the point of view of one living in an unreal environment and unreal reality except for sometimes far too much of both. It tries to explain through a mental split of thinking the disorder of being black and white on a red and white flag which the flag of Nigeria was used to make a new flag for a young nation at peace. Some of the book is autobiographical and some more involved in detailed analysis of control by technology and the human animal Man. It may seem to be rather complex and hard to read but one must understand I wrote the book in a psychiatric hospital being brainwashed to get back on my feet again. It spans a life time of observation in the nation of Canada as seen through an african who is white blinded by so many mindsets about colour and race and origins. Leaving everything behind that was most precious in Africa I have had to live this nation s reality as my own sight seen or unseen often misplaced or taken for granted or isolated and or used and abused.
