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The Dreadful Judgement
If the story that struck the Grand Banks off Newfoundland in October 1991 was The Perfect Storm, the fire that destroyed London in September 1666 was The Perfect Fire. A fire needs only three things: a spark to ignite it, and the fuel and oxygen to feed it. In 1666, a ten-month drought had turned London into a tinderbox. The older parts of the city were almost entirely composed of wood-frame buildings and shanties. The riverside wharves were stack with wood, coal, oil, tallow, hemp, pitch, brandy, and almost very other combustible material known to seventeenth century man. On 2 September 1666, London ignited. Over the next five days the gale blew without interruption and the resulting firestorm destroyed the whole city. THE DREADFUL JUDGEMENT tells the true, human story of the Great Fire of London through the eyes of the individuals caught up in it. It is a historical story combining modern knowledge of the physics of fire, forensics and arson investigation with the moving eye-witness accounts to produce a searing depiction of the terrible reality of the Great Fire of London and its impact on those who lived through it.
The Ticket Collector from Belarus
'Brilliantly gripping' Sunday Times; 'Compelling' Daily Mail; 'Heart-rending' Sunday Telegraph; 'Excellent' The Times; 'Engrossing' Independent The UK's only war crimes trial took place in 1999 and had its origins in the horrors of the Holocaust, but only now in The Ticket Collector from Belarus? can the full story be told. The Ticket Collector from Belarus tells the remarkable story of two interwoven journeys. Ben-Zion Blustein and Andrei Sawoniuk were childhood friends in 1930s Domachevo, a holiday and health resort in what is now Belarus. During the events that followed the Nazi invasion in 1941, they became the bitterest of enemies. After the war, Ben-Zion made his way to Israel, and ‘...
First Man
On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person ever to step on the surface of another heavenly body. Upon his return to Earth, Armstrong was celebrated for his monumental achievement. He was also--as NASA historian Hansen reveals in this authorized biography--misunderstood. Armstrong's accomplishments as an engineer, a test pilot, and an astronaut have long been a matter of record, but Hansen's access to private documents and unpublished sources and his interviews with more than 125 subjects (including more than fifty hours with Armstrong himself) yield the first in-depth analysis of this elusive, reluctant hero.
Escape From Germany
July, 1918. The most heavily guarded POW camp in the world. Surrounded by steel palisades and barbed-wire fences, patrolled by ferocious dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill, Holzminden was a brutal punishment camp. To escape would take boundless ingenuity and nerves of steel. Many tried. Prisoners used sardine-tin openers to pick locks, forged documents, sent messages using milk as an invisible ink, and created fake uniforms and elaborate disguises. Every attempt failed, leading only to ever-tighter defences. But on the night of 23 July 1918, twenty-nine undaunted Allied prisoners achieved the impossible. They had spent nine months using cutlery to move tonnes of earth, clay and stone, digging a tunnel over 150 feet long under the walls and barbed-wire fences, to the farmland beyond. This is the fascinating story of how they did it – and of the many who had failed before them. Neil Hanson provides a rare insight into the minds of these prisoners of war, revealing their resourcefulness, courage and persistence – and inexhaustible good humour.
The Custom Of The Sea
On 5 July 1884, the yacht Mignonette set sail from Southampton bound for Sydney. Halfway through their projected one hundred and twenty day voyage, Captain Tom Dudley and his crew of three men were beset by a monstrous storm off the coast of Africa. After four days of battling towering waves and hurricane gales, their yacht was finally crushed by a ferocious forty foot wave. The survivors were cast adrift a thousand miles from the nearest landfall in an open thirteen foot dinghy without provisions, water or shelter from the scorching sun. When, after twenty four days, they were finally rescued by a passing yacht, the Moctezuma, only three men were left and they were in an appalling condition. The ordeal that they endured and the trial which followed their eventual return to England held the whole nation - from the lowliest ship's deckhand to Queen Victoria herself - spellbound during the following winter. This is the true story of the voyage and the subsequent court case which outlawed for ever a practice followed since men first put to the ocean in boats: the custom of the sea.
Pigs Might Fly
"More tales of the highest inn in Britain, deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Joining the cast of local characters are a theatrical pig, a spiky punk barmaid, two Australian handymen and a Walter Mitty-esque chef. The naive young couple who ran the decrepit inn in the late 1970s return as its new owners. Stumbling from one crisis to another, they somehow make the inn famous ... when the double-glazing company film a TV commercial there"--Publisher's description.
The Inn at the Top
Offers a tale of a young couple who in the late 1970s, on impulse, became the new landlords of the most remote, bleak and lonely pub - The Tan Hill Inn - located in the desolate landscape of the Yorkshire Dales.
First Blitz
A world away from the killing fields of France was a battle that could have changed the face of history. Over the course of 1917, German bombers threatened to engulf London in firestorms - a portent of the London Blitz and the Battle of Britain over twenty years later. They were determined to bring London to its knees. The First Blitz took place over eight nights in 1917, but it was the second wave of attacks in the summer of 1918, following the development of the 'Elektron' incendiary bomb, that came within an ace of obliterating London. The margin between the survival of the world's greatest capital city and its total destruction came down to less than one hour. The events and decisions taken in the course of those fateful days were as important as anything that happened on the Western Front. With breathtaking insight, compelling drama and supreme narrative clarity, Neil Hanson tells the story of the air war that could have altered the course of the conflict, and with it the history of the twentieth century itself . . .
The Unknown Soldier
Of all the million British dead of the First World War, only one - the Unknown Soldier - was ever returned to his native land. An anonymous symbol of all those lost without trace in the carnage of the battlefields, he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey amid an outpouring of grief that brought the whole nation to a standstill, far outweighing even the emotion expressed over the death of Princess Diana over eighty years later. Inspired by this example, almost every combatant nation buried its own Unknown Soldier and the graves became the focus of a pilgrimage that still continues today. Drawing on largely unpublished letters and diaries, Neil Hanson has resurrected the lives and experiences...
The Inn at the Top
The delightful tale of a young couple who in the late 1970s, on impulse became the new landlords of the most remote, bleak and lonely pub - The Tan Hill Inn - located in the bleak landscape of the Yorkshire Dales. They had no experience of the licensed trade or running a pub, no knowledge of farming and a complete inability to understand the dialect of the sheep farmers who were the local customers. Eager, well-meaning, but in their own heads, our two heroes embark on a disaster-strewn career that somehow also turned into a lifelong love affair with the Dales.
