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tribes. Major Walter James Cumming fought the legendary Pathan tribesmen of the North-West Frontier there for 20 years, right up to the start of the Second World War. During this time, he served in two Frontier units, the South Waziristan Scouts and the Corps of Guides. There was fun to be had with polo, hunting and pig-sticking, but also great danger, excitement and gallantry. Major Cumming went on to command a Pathan regiment in North Africa in World War II. 191 pages, photos and map. £19.99 NOW £6


74178 D-DAY TO VICTORY: The Diaries of a British Tank Commander


by Sgt Trevor Greenwood edited by S. V. Partington Tank Commander Sgt Trevor Greenwood of C Squadron, the 9th Royal Tank Regiment, sailed for France in June 1944 as part of the Allied invasion of Normandy. From D-Day until April 1945, he kept a daily diary of his experiences of the final push through France and into


Germany, often writing in secret, and in terrible conditions. Under fire, out-gunned and facing a bitter winter, he never loses his moral compass or his sense of humour, finding time to brew tea and maintain morale with characteristic British reserve. He has left a unique record of the war in Europe from the rarely-seen perspective of an ordinary soldier. We can do no better than to quote just one of his vivid descriptions. ‘We are being fired at in the tanks... machine-gunned from the air, shelled by artillery, mortared, sniped at... and then there are the countless mines and booby traps left behind by Jerry. Hells bells! Poor little C Squadron!’ 407 deeply moving pages with illustrations in b/w, maps, glossary of military terms and equipment, list of abbreviations, article The Organisation of 9 RTR and background material on 9 RTR. £14.99 NOW £5


73401 TREASURES FROM THE ATTIC: The


Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank’s Family by Mirjam Pressler with Gerti Elias Carefully preserved amongst opera hats and evening gowns in the attic of their home, Anne Frank’s grandmother Alice and her daughter, Anne’s Aunt Leni, left behind over 6,000 letters and diaries. It took Gerti Elias two-and-a-half years to transcribe and edit them. Anne wrote her diary over two years, from the age of 13, while hiding in the secret annexe of her father’s Amsterdam warehouse, in an attempt to escape the horrors of anti-semitic Nazi occupation. Now it can be put in its proper context. Here are photographs of Anne and her family, her father’s letters from the concentration camp at Auschwitz and the miraculous return of the diaries. 399 pages, illus in colour. £20 NOW £5.50


74119 BECAUSE YOU DIED by Vera Brittain


‘Because you died, I shall not rest again.’ Vera Brittain was one of the best-loved writers of her time with the publication in 1933 of her passionate record of a lost generation ‘Testament of Youth’. This collection of her poetry and prose, some of it never before published, commemorates the men she loved - her fiancé, her brother


and two close friends - who served and died in the First World War. It draws on her experiences as a VAD nurse in London, Malta and France, and illustrates her growing conviction of the wickedness of all war. Photos, 234pp, paperback.


£8.99 NOW £4


74044 REFLECTIONS OF GUERNSEY by Molly Bihet


The Channel Islands were the only British Territory to be occupied by thousands of German troops from June 1940 to May 1945. Molly Bihet paints a heart-warming picture of a truly Guernsey family. Chapter headings include Liberation with Love, Life and Laughters, Their Majesties Arrive 1945, Another School Move and Work Begins, A Move to Rosedale and Guests, Gramp and the Old Characters, Donkeys Versus Crapauds! and Enter the Dinosaurs. Packed with domestic details, military facts and figures about numbers in the German garrisons (13,000) and privations of the civilian population where they had no radio set. 120pp, illustrated softback. £12.99 NOW £6


74351 WAR ON OUR DOORSTEP by Harriet Salisbury


East Enders’ true confessions taking us right back to the grime, labour, docks, dockers and stevedores, Jews, Irish and Catholics, jobs at Tate & Lyle and Burrell’s Paintworks, on Petticoat Lane, nursing, under gas attack, the gun sight at Mudchute, pranks, dances, ignorance about sex, families crowded into single rooms, children playing on the streets. Here is a place where neighbours’ doors were never locked - in case you needed an escape route from the police! The Second World War changed everything. 484pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3.50


72448 EMBED: With the World’s Armies in Afghanistan by Nick Allen


Concerning the “end” of the Afghan War of 1878-90, General Sir John Miller Adye wrote “At [the war’s] close we had over 70,000 men in Afghanistan… even then we really only held the territory within the range of our guns.” In the summer of 2007 Nick Allen was in a secure job as a news agency writer based in Pakistan. Then he was invited to join the Gurkhas in Kandahar province as an embedded reporter for a month, to experience and report upon the daily life of foreign troops fighting the Taliban in their own back yard. Allen has accompanied US, British, Canadian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Romanian, Estonian and New Zealand troops. His writing carries the essence of the reality of soldiering in this inhospitable place. 288pp, 100 b/w photos plus 16 pages of colour. £18.99 NOW £5


73347 DOCKERS’ STORIES FROM THE SECOND WORLD


WAR by Henry T. Bradford For 32 years, the author was a Registered Docker in the Port of London. These tales, with their colourful characters, reveal extraordinary courage and resourcefulness. Here is Captain Jim Fryer saving survivors from the bombed hospital ship Paris, for


which he was awarded the DSC. Here is Petty officer Jack Hicks’ quieter but equally memorable posting steering a clinker-built boat on a hush-hush job from the north-east to the Thames, accompanied by just an inexperienced co-man and an incredibly efficient WREN! 127 paperback pages, archive and contemporary photos. £12.99 NOW £6


74352 WOMEN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Collette Drifte


The book tells the personal accounts of ordinary British women in their own words of their experiences on active service. Their accounts cover the whole spectrum from famous battles such as Monte Cassino, Dunkirk, D-Day, the Blitz, bombings in Portsmouth, Southampton, Coventry and Liverpool to being shipwrecked by a torpedo and ending up on a lifeboat for 24 hours. Here too are simple acts of kindness which in themselves seem nothing but meant at the time something very special to those young women even 60 years later recounting the experience here. News, gossip, sorrows and joys were shared. 222pp, illus. £19.99 NOW £6.50


70255 BRINGING UNCLE ALBERT HOME: A


Soldier’s Tale by David P. Whithorn This is the story of one man’s search for his distant relative, describing Private Turley’s active service with the 3rd Battalion at the Worcestershire Regiment. Whithorn’s painstaking reconstruction of Albert’s story from surviving records and histories led to a pilgrimage following his footsteps to the Somme hillside where he fell in August 1916. What sets this book apart is its dual function as a tightly focussed history of the 3rd Worcestershires and a detective story. 234pp in paperback, photos and maps. £8.99 NOW £2.50


71456 GLADIATOR ACE: Bill “Cherry” Vale,


the RAF’s Forgotten Fighter Ace by Brian Cull Sqn Ldr William Vale, DFC & Bar, AFC was one of the RAF’s top fighter aces of WWII. In fact, he was unofficially number three on the list with 30 kills. Bill joined the RAF aged 16 in 1930. In 1940 he flew Gloster Gladiators against the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica over North Africa and Greece. Shot down and taken prisoner by the Italians in 1941, he escaped with the aid of Greek partisans, and rejoined his unit, which by then were being equipped with Hurricanes. When Greece fell in 1941 he flew his Hurricane to Crete, operating virtually solo and claiming a further seven kills in a few days. When Crete was invaded he was evacuated by flying boat to Egypt, from where he flew his Hurricane against Vichy French forces over Syria, making a further three kills. He received his DFC & Bar from King George VI in October 1943. 256pp, photos. £19.99 NOW £6


72459 THE MAN WHO RAN LONDON DURING


THE GREAT WAR by Richard Morris Subtitled ‘The Diaries and Letters of General Sir Francis Lloyd GCVO, KCB, DSO 1853-1926’. General Sir Francis Lloyd was arguably the best known military figure in the capital during The Great War. In 1913 he was appointed to the supreme position reserved for Guardsmen, the command of London District. On the outbreak of war, his duties were greatly increased and, for the next five years, he exercised sweeping powers in the metropolis. These covered the running of hospitals and main railway termini. He also masterminded the construction of the defensive circle of trenches around London. He had served in the Sudan and in South Africa during the Boer War, where he was severely wounded, and had commanded the Welsh Division of the newly formed Territorials. 196 pages, archive photos, maps. £19.99 NOW £4


72189 I SANK THE BISMARK by Lt. Cdr John Moffat and Mike Rossiter In May 1941, the pilots of 15 canvas-covered biplanes struggled to hold their Swordfish aircraft steady as they headed towards the German battleship Bismarck. The Swordfish flew low over a wind-racked ocean, the mighty Bismarck’s guns firing a lethal storm of shells and bullets at them. Among these brave fliers was a young sub-lieutenant in the Fleet Air Arm, John Moffat. This is his story. The Bismarck was hit, lost control and steamed in circles until the ships of the Royal Navy could close in and they pounded the great battleship reducing her to a lifeless hulk. Only years later was John told that the record suggested it was his torpedo that had prevented the Bismarck from outrunning her pursuers. 294pp with photos, some colour. £12.99 NOW £5.50


!


72477 SIR, THEY’RE TAKING THE KIDS INDOORS: The British Army in Northern


Ireland 1973-74 by Ken Wharton Ken Wharton served as a soldier on the streets of Belfast in the 70s and mounts a strongly-worded defence of the British army’s role in those devastating years. In 1972 over 25,000 troops were deployed, with a small reduction in the next two years. The experience of the young men on the ground was terrifying, with both Provisionals and Loyalists mounting ruthlessly bloody campaigns. Wharton points a strong finger of blame at these who bankrolled the Provisional IRA from America and Libya. This month-by-month account vividly brings to life the daily and nightly experience of being a soldier on the streets. Platoon Commander George Clarke of the Green Howards, lying in wait in a trouble spot, nearly shot his commanding officer but disaster was avoided through his cool nerve. The sister of a dead man movingly describes the fear and grief of waiting for news. 358pp, photos, roll of honour. £25 NOW £7


! 72503 WITNESSES OF WAR: Children’s Lives


under the Nazis by Nicholas Stargardt As children absorbed the realities of Nazi occupation, Polish boys played at being Gestapo interrogators, and Jewish children in ghettos pretended to be ghetto guards or SS officers. Within days of Germany’s surrender, German children were playing at being Russian soldiers. Possibly the most shocking are the pictures drawn by young Kalman Landau, a survivor of the death camps, of daily life in the camp - roll-call, beatings, hangings, death-march, the gas chambers and liberation - all drawn in a child’s hand which makes their graphic depictions all the more heart-rending. 36 photos and drawings, 510pp. £20 NOW £5


BIOGRAPHY / AUTOBIOGRAPHY


I don’t at all like knowing what people say behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.


- Oscar Wilde


74922 THINKER, FAILURE, SOLDIER, JAILER: An Anthology of Great Lives in 365 Days edited by Harry de Quetteville


Arranged day-by-day around the calendar, the book presents each life on the date it ended, and features some truly amazing life stories, and occasionally produces some bizarre juxtapositions, with Henry Cooper (1 May) next to Osama bin Laden (2


May) and Linda Lovelace (2 April) rubbing shoulders with Lionel Bart (3 April). World statesmen, film stars, pioneering scientists, rock ‘n’ rollers, artists and their muses, sportsmen, captains of commerce and VC winners mingle with spies, spivs, crooks, bullfighters, goat breeders, hangmen, a cross-dressing mountaineer and one particular favourite, Pastor Jack Glass (24 Feb), the Glaswegian fire and brimstone Anglican preacher, who denounced the Pope as the antichrist, wanted to drown Billy Connolly in lava and was considered an extremist by none other than Ian Paisley. Endlessly absorbing, this is the perfect gift for the armchair (or vitreous chair) psychologist in all of us. 586 priceless pages, photos. £25 NOW £7


74874 TWELVE BABIES ON A BIKE: Diary of a Pupil


Midwife by Dot May Dunn In 1956, Dot, a pupil midwife, negotiates the streets on her trusty old bicycle, come rain or shine to help women in need. Living and working under the supervision of the strict Mrs O’Reilly, she must complete her training with 12 deliveries - there’s Mrs Wardell, who lives in a seedy slum, the eighth Clarke baby, born in an unusual


place, the superstitious Wests desperate for a boy, baby Murphy, who is received with laughter, and brothel- worker Mrs Maloney. Amid lectures, text books and university dances, Dot must saddle up at any time of the day or night to attend deliveries. Then fate deals her an unexpected hand. 264pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £4


74827 BREAD, JAM AND A


BORROWED PRAM by Dot May Dunn


From the bestselling author of Twelve Babies On A Bike code 74874, here we are at the end of the 1950s when Britain is changing. As a young health visitor, Dot embarks on an adventure of her own when she takes a job working from an inner-city clinic. Whether at the clinic, out visiting cases or retrieving errant parents from pawn


shops and pubs, Dot is thrown in at the deep end. She is responsible not just for the babies brought into this world, but an army of toddlers, tykes and tots who all need a helping hand. ‘Sterilising bottles was more than I could ask for, but as baby Simon has made it to eight months of age and can now sit up in the pram and take food from any of his siblings, sterility is not paramount. Now that Simon’s sores are healing and I can take my eyes from him, I have, over the weeks, got to know the other three children...’ Dot discovers how the spirit of community can overcome the toughest of circumstances. 310pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £4


74970 LITTLE WILSON AND BIG GOD Being The First Part of the Confessions of Anthony


Burgess by Anthony Burgess Manchester born, with a predominently Irish Catholic background, Burgess’ mother died when he was still a baby. His childhood was a mixture of Chicks Own, Tiger Tim, and being in love with a seven-year-old girl who did a


great impersonation of Felix the Cat. Frolics at Manchester University, wartime experiences in the Royal Army Medical Corps and in ENSA are just part of this scandalously funny - yet stirring - romp through this great author’s life, engagingly recounted in a ‘can’t-put-it-down’ style. In 1959 when Burgess was told he had a brain tumour and given a year to live, he decided to write to earn money for his widow. The doctors were wrong, the rest is history - books, such as A Clockwork Orange, made his name. Paperback, 460pp. £9.99 NOW £5


War Memoirs


11


74485 FREE: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful


Society by Katharine Hibbert What happens when you walk away from everything you think you cannot live without? Work, gym, drinks, the home, shops, bed and back to work, cars, insurance, bank accounts, credit/debit cards, tax, a career - what would happen if one day you just packed it all in, deciding to survive on next to nothing? At the age of 26, with a


good job as a journalist and sharing a comfortable Victorian house with her sister, Katharine Hibbert did just that, deciding to walk the streets for a year with just a backpack, living off the food, clothes, goods and accommodation that would otherwise go to waste. A whole year of squatting, scavenging and no spending awaited - would she survive, and if so, would she want to go back to her old life? It was a fascinating trip around society’s fringe, taking in accommodation ranging from foul and dangerous drug-dens to lavish squatted mansions, learning how to fend for herself and to trust the generosity of strangers and the friends she made along the way. She became part of a mostly hidden community that builds a life using the things that others discard and soon discovered that life on the margins, though not without its dangers, amounts to much more than you might think. Extremely eye-opening, particularly in the legal aspects of squatting and the battle between squatters, absentee landlords, “enforcers”, the police and the courts. 317pp paperback. £11.99 NOW £4


74910 A FORTUNATE LIFE: The Autobiography of Paddy


Ashdown by Paddy Ashdown Jeremy John Durham Ashdown was born into a military family, was born in India on 27 February 1941, but left there in 1946 for a childhood spent in Northern Ireland. It was when he went to Bedford School aged 13 that his accent earned him the nickname of Paddy, which has stuck with him for life.


With a family so steeped in military tradition a military career was perhaps inevitable and joining the Royal Marines in 1959 saw action in Borneo and further action the SBS as a submarine raider, before retiring from the Navy with the rank of Captain in 1972 and working for MI6 and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Geneva. A supporter of Labour when younger, the Three Day Week and two elections in a year (1974) saw him change allegiance and in 1976 he contested and won the seat for Yeovil for the Liberal Party. From 1988 to 1999 he was the leader of the Liberal Democrats, contesting two General Elections and increasing the party’s representation from 18 to 46 seats. Never one to shirk a challenge - and with a degree of military understanding that no other politician could offer - he went on to expose Serbian ethnic cleansing in the 1990s and was for four years the UN’s High Representative in Bosnia. Now Lord Ashdown, here he tells his life story and what a read it is. 404pp paperback, photos. £9.99 NOW £4


74058 P. G. WODEHOUSE: A Life In Letters


edited by Sophie Ratcliffe In a book that every lover of Wodehouse’s comic characters will want to possess, an Oxford academic has managed to produce what must be the definitive edition of his letters. These missives cover everything from his schooldays at Dulwich College, the family’s financial reverses - which saw his hopes of university dashed - to his


life working in musical comedy with Jerome Kern and George and Ira Gershwin and his years of fame as a novelist. Not glossed over is an unhappy episode in 1940, when he was interned by the Germans, and later erroneously accused of broadcasting pro-Nazi propaganda. These letters give an illuminating biographical background to his nearly 100 books, his poems, his legendary comic creations such as Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Psmith and the Empress of Blandings, and his own unexpectedly quiet, retiring personality. Includes letters to Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell, Lawrence Durrell, Malcolm Muggeridge, Tom Sharpe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 602 pages, photos. £30 NOW £8


74068 MEMOIRS by William Rees-Mogg Educated at Charterhouse and Balliol, William Rees- Mogg started his career as a journalist at the Financial Times and joined the Sunday Times in 1960 as Political and Economic Editor before moving to The Times from 1967-81. He has spent his life at the centre of politics and journalism as commentator, Chairman of the Arts Council and Vice-Chairman of the BBC. The memoirs are peopled with characters including Margaret Thatcher, ‘Rab’ Butler, Golda Meir, Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins, Ronald Reagan and many more. 328pp paperback, photos.


£12.99 NOW £4 74204 SHADES OF GREENE: One Generation


of an English Family by Jeremy Lewis Of the 12 children born to brothers Charles and Edward Greene, eight recorded remarkable achievements - from BBC Director General to an Everest mountaineer, from a female MI6 agent to a champion of Communist China, from a founder of a far-right political party to the inevitable black sheep - and in documenting the interlacing lives of this generation, Lewis provides an exercise in group biography and a masterly account of English society in the 20th century. It is a family saga to make you marvel again and again. Grahame Greene was a secret agent, traveller, publisher and man of letters, but his siblings are just as entertaining. 575pp in paperback, photos. £9.99 NOW £4


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