As war approached Europe in 1939 the fear of bombing was palpable, and this history reviews how public services prepared for attacks, demonstrating how fire brigades played a crucial role in minimizing damages, injuries, and deaths. It also considers key focal points, including the fire storm that damaged London in December of 1940, the attacks on ports and industrial cities, new strikes on London in 1941, and the final assault by V-1 and V-2 rockets. Published 70 years later, this book provides a colorful portrait that draws on interviews with participants throughout the United Kingdom.

Firefighters & the Blitz

History

Beckett, Francis

Europe

Merlin Press

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places... In a future of bleakness and roboticism, a totalitarian government enforces upon the people a lifestyle that lulls them into a state of obedience. Your career and social status are predestined and you cannot alter it - this is a reality that walks a fine line between evoking sensations of fear and inducing a sense of futility. A dystopian reality can sometimes turn out to be as powerful and strong as it can be fragile, collapsing in on itself from one second to the next. As a race, we are fascinated with what comes next, what's over the hill and, inevitably, what happens if we're left all alone. How can things go on? What lessons can we learn? Broken Worlds takes a peep into an all too possible future. Narration and style change from story to story, but the core of this volume is human emotion. Coloured by their cultures and backgrounds, the storytellers featured in this volume take the idea of a society at extremes and weave a variety of outcomes. We invite you to read and hope you enjoy this collection. The Sad Man by Thomas Brown (competition winner) From the fifth-floor window of his inner-city flat, a man keeps watch for his friend, the Sad Man. Pioneer by Joe Saxon Lidia lives in the waterworks, always hungry, until she receives a message from the supervisors of the upper floors. The Insects by Gavin Bryce Thia is a city with millions of electronic eyes. On his retirement day, Roman Huxley has planned a special retirement present for the entire megacity. Screens by Alix Owen A story inspired by the advent of Google Glass; when one young man contracts a biomechanical disease, he is forced to see what the world has become while everybody else was social networking. Machinations by Shira Hereld A marriage is slowly falling apart as both partners become more and more reliant on mechanical Andros for everything from housework to intimacy. The Architect by Gavin Haran A local obituarist tracks the sinister transformation of his town through the introduction of mysterious architectural constructions with unexpected consequences The Deepening Well by Sam Hurcom Can a state of mind be considered dystopian - how would the end of history affect the last survivng individual? 3AM Job by Mark Schultz On a future Earth, where absolute free market capitalism controls the globe, a freelance butcher accepts an early morning job which turns out to be far more profitable than it seems at first glance. The Farm by George Vernon A farmer and his family are threatened by their rebellious herd. Also in the collection... Vision of Paradise by Clare Banks The Last CanvaS by Paul Dawson The Leadership Gene by Francis Beckett Watch by Miles Gatrell Water Rats by Terry Holland The Rebel's Daughter by Virgina Ballesty Meat is Murder by David Turnbull Equity Lamp by Adam "Bucho" Rodenburger Dreg Town by Steph Minns It was the Best of Times by Konstantine Paradias Carved in Ice by Doxa J. Zannou Silva's Plague by Ian Green Urbanova by Christian Cook Cover art, Broken Worlds by Daniel Tyka

Broken Worlds: Dystopian Stories

Paradias, Konstantine

Seddon, Holly

Rodenburger, Adam "Bucho"

Owen, Alix

Hurcom, Sam

Haran, Gavin

Banks, Clare

Vernon, George

Brown, Thomas

Literature & Fiction

Almond Press

Fascist in the Family (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)

John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour's youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness. But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley’s fascists, and one of Britain’s three best known anti-Semites.  Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia.  He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life – he said his mother’s family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years. He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort. For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett’s childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family. This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.

Fascist in the Family: The Tragedy of John Beckett M.P. (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Routledge

Stalin's British Victims (Routledge Revivals)

First published in 2004, this book tells the stories of four remarkable British women, whose lives were scorched by Stalin’s purges. One was shot as a spy; one nearly died as a slave labourer in Kazakhstan; and two saw their husbands taken away to the gulag and had to spirit their small children out of the country. We think of the horrors of the middle of the twentieth century- the Holocaust in Central Europe, the purges in the Soviet Union- as something foreign: terrible, but remote. Rosal Rust, Rose Cohen, Freda Utley, and Pearl Rimel were all Londoners. Like hundreds of young, idealistic Britons in the 1930s, they looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration, for a way in which society could be run better, without the exploitation and poverty which unrestrained capitalism had created. They were less fortunate than most of us: they saw their dreams fulfilled.  In this book, Francis Beckett draws on personal letters, interviews with surviving relatives and archivists to create a picture of four courageous, intelligent, and very different women. The result is a harrowing human document with vivid and unforgettable insights into the world of Stalin’s Russia: its secret trials, labour camps, random disappearances, and concealed executions.

Historical

First published in 2010, this book explores the legacy of the baby boomers: the generation who, born in the aftermath of the Second World War, came of age in the radical sixties where for the first time since the War, there was freedom, money, and safe sex. In this book, Francis Beckett argues that what began as the most radical-sounding generation for half a century turned into a random collection of youthful style gurus, sharp-toothed entrepreneurs and management consultants who believed revolution meant new ways of selling things; and Thatcherites, who thought freedom meant free markets, not free people. At last, it found its most complete expression in New Labour. The author argues that the children of the 1960s betrayed the generations that came before and after, and that the true legacy of the swinging decade is in ashes.

What Did The Baby Boomers Ever Do For Us? (Routledge Revivals)

Blair Inc.: The Man Behind the Mask

Take a closer look at the world of Tony Blair, whose private financial dealings within a complex web of business relationships he tries to keep hidden from the public eye Since leaving office in 2007, the secretive empire of Tony Blair has grown exponentially. As a businessman he has been unprecedentedly successful for a former public servant, with a large property portfolio and an estimated £80 million of earnings accrued in just a few short years. But how has he managed to achieve this? Being an ex-Prime Minister comes with certain advantages, and besides his excellent state pension and 24-hour security team, Blair enjoys the best contacts that money can buy—as do those willing to pay him for access to them. Consequently, Tony Blair Associates’ clients can be found around the world, and include the morally distasteful presidents of Kazakhstan and Burma. There is also Blair’s role as special envoy in the Middle East. While his record as a peacemaker is in doubt, the position has brought him into contact with a variety of oil-rich potentates in the region who now number among his most profitable clients. Blair Inc.: The Man behind the Mask takes a close look at the world that Blair attempts to hide from scrutiny—his own. From the complex financial structures he uses to hide his profits—and the amount of tax he pays—to the multiple conflicts of interest produced by his increasing web of relationships, this book attempts to expose the dubious private dealings of this very public figure.

Kochan, Nick

Hencke, David

John Blake

Bishops and archbishops, top footballers, politicians and actors...they all count him as their friend. Prime Ministers and senior royals stop and listen to his opinions. He's got an honorary degree and his very own football club. There was even a movie about him on national television. But who is Neil Baldwin? At Keele University they hold regular celebrations and chapel services for the decades he's been the friend of students, academics and vice-chancellors. But he's never been a student, or a teacher, or had any formal connection with the place. At Stoke City Football Club, he's 'more famous than the players.' He's even got a dialogue going with the Queen, though that one's still a little one-sided. But who is he, and what's he famous for? When he was a boy in a working-class part of the Potteries in the fifties and sixties, the education system wrote him off. But Neil thinks 'you can get things by asking for them.' He also thinks his late Mum wanted him to have a happy life, and it's his duty to her to have one. So he does. This is the inspiring and, at times, hysterically funny story of Neil's extraordinary life.

Marvellous: My Story

Baldwin, Neil

Clarke, Malcolm

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