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The Bitterest PLC To Swallow
If you’ve ever worked in a pub, currently work in one, or simply have an interest in the history and evolution of pubs, Neil’s book is a must-read. In this insightful and entertaining memoir, Neil shares his experiences and observations about working in local estate pubs during a time when they were the heart and soul of their respective communities.
Through humorous anecdotes and blunt opinions, Neil highlights the many challenges faced by pub owners and workers in the modern era. From policies that leave him screaming to people who make him swear, Neil pulls no punches in his assessment of the pub industry.
The book also explores the transformation of local estate pubs into modern-day branded establishments, such as curry houses and convenience stores. Neil’s revelations are sure to surprise and shock readers, and may even cause them to question the value and quality of the food and drink they pay for in these establishments.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Neil takes readers on a trip down memory lane, revisiting the fun pubs of the 80s before they became bitter PLCs. Through Neil’s vivid storytelling, readers will laugh, cringe, and even taste the history of these once-beloved establishments.
In the end, Neil offers his take on what happened to pubs and what they have become. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and evolution of pubs, and may just make you think twice about where you choose to spend your hard-earned wages.
£12.99 -
The Best of Health
60 years ago, being a medical student entailed some hair-raising encounters in the course of training like giving a general anaesthetic without help or instruction, simply because you were the only help available; or assisting in emergency surgery when there was nobody else available.
Distinguished doctors thronged the corridors of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Long after the war there was still a vivid memory of Burma and Libya.Find out why an elderly theatre orderly hinted darkly at “a doctor who got to Dunkirk four days ahead of the field hospital team”. Get a new slant on the Penicillin story and read why the old NHS system in Edinburgh avoided “bed blockers”.
Here is an account of the almost explosive expansion of hospital medicine into ICUs – cardiac arrest teams, coronary care units, positive pressure ventilation, renal dialysis, etc. It was a time of medical progress and high morale.£9.99 -
The Battered Generation
Physical punishment at schools in Iran continued until being banned by the Ministry of Education in September 1960.
The author spent four years at “Safa” school in the north area of Tehran, in Iran from 1953 to 1957. In this book he recalls the social and educational conditions of those years, the morale and status of students and the teachers’ way of thinking. He also discusses the prevailing culture of physical punishments and the hardships the students endured along with their entertainments, recreations and access to academic facilities. He wants to show what devastating effects beatings and physical punishments have on children and what irreparable and lasting impacts they leave on the soul of children in the form of anxiety, panic and permanent fear.
The pain of being beaten and punished was not just for the students, but the ones who did it also suffered from the memory of their actions in the course of time. Some regretted their mistakes and oppressions. There were some teachers among them who were sensitive by nature and were aware that physical punishment was not right. However, the social structure of that time required the beatings.
£11.99 -
The A to Z of Alfie Zeller
Dip into The A to Z of Alfie Zeller to find: Petty Officer Sam Zeller, who swam the Channel long before Captain Webb, in a straight line, without body grease in search of escargots; Pierre, who invented Chicken Marengo and was promoted to corporal by Napoleon; Alicia Zeller, who ran the séances at which Arthur Conan Doyle saw fairies. Meet Trooper Zeller, who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade, or would have done, if he’d been there; Zeb Zeller, whose diaries made those of Sam Pepys read like the tedious account of bowel movements which they mostly are; Herman Zeller, who put Franz Kafka on to surrealism; the Zeller who was defenestrated in Prague and fell into a rose bush; and finally meet the Zeller who, although a staunch Royalist, fought in the Parliamentary ranks at Naseby.
It is all explained somewhere and Alfie does not spare the details. If short of a few, he admits to perhaps having made them up. What, he argues, is a slightly dubious fact, if it gets in the way of the truth?
£8.99 -
The 50-Year Secret
This is a true story of physical, mental and sexual abuse of a child by someone who you trust the most – a father. Taking place in the ’60s where this sort of crime was unheard of, let alone reported as nobody believed that it happened, this book is full of funny stories and anecdotes but also sadness as the story unfolds eventually ending up in Crown Court.
£8.99 -
That’s Alright Mamma
Being a survivor of institutionalized abuse from the late 1950s in Ireland, author Josie Dias Wallace describes her journey after leaving a convent and embarking on a new adventure in England, UK, where she settled permanently alongside her sister Mels, RIP.
£13.99 -
That Boogie Beat Damn Killed My Soul
I have been involved in the music business in various roles since 1961. I was bought my first guitar when I was 12 years old, on which I slogged away for a year. In 1962, I joined my first band, the Phantoms. Then the Sparticans came for me in 1963, then in 1965, I was invited to join the Nomads, who were local pop stars!
This began a life in which I would meet many of the good and great in the music industry, including a Beatle, with whom we made a record. In 1979, with my friend, old bandmate and future business partner, keyboard player John DaCosta, I decided to open a music shop – the first of many we would open in the coming years. After an epic roller coaster ride of ambition and excess, it all came crashing down for me in 1994 and I was forced to rethink my life. Today I live a complicated but thoroughly enjoyable life in Thailand, still playing the guitar and writing songs, but no longer trying to run music shops…
£10.99 -
Thank You for My Dinner, May I Get Down Please?
The author always enjoyed a sense of freedom, whether roaming around the Somerset countryside as a child or later on, living offshore with her husband and three daughters on a boat. She considers nothing strictly ‘out of bounds’, and for seventy years no-one has stopped her in her tracks. Thank You for My Dinner really sums up the dichotomy of her life – an upbringing steeped in Victorian-based principles and the free license to go her own way, which was generous even by twenty-first century standards.
This is the story of Celia’s early life coupled with a trip down the river, never completely grown up, always looking for adventure, not anticipating danger, but keeping a sense of fun and a smile through various struggles – and surviving enough to say ‘thank you’ at the end.
£6.99 -
Teeth In Sink, Knickers on Landing
I hope you laugh a lot and maybe cry a little and even try to understand the workings of my bipolar mind in this, my one and only book. The pages of which I recall with love, laughter and tears, the wondrous people who have helped weave the tapestry of my strange, troubled life.If you are perplexed by the wacky title, you will find the answer with Ebony, a majestic black lady of the night, who was the dearest of friends. Turn the pages and there you will find a butt-naked butcher manacled to the grooming table in a poodle parlour! Turn yet again to meet Suki AKA Gladys, an old-time (much used) working girl screaming as she climbs off a corpse who was doing his thing just moments ago.And just why did Jean Jeanie have a frothy bottom? Intrigued? Well, just turn my pages and all will be revealed.
£13.99 -
Teenagers and How to Succeed
It doesn’t matter whether your own teenage years are a distant memory or only yesterday, you will love this book. If you have your very own living, barely functioning teenager at home, you’ll laugh until you cry. Or just cry. If you have younger children on the cusp of their teenage years, you’ll definitely be crying, as you’ll know that all the things you are reading will be happening very shortly and there is nothing you can do about it (within the bounds of the law, anyway). And if you are a teenager yourself, it’s likely you’ll laugh yourself silly because you probably think it’s about someone else.
Either way, you’ll be immersed. It’s a frank and honest account of the incidents and accidents the author’s own children got up to, with some of his own memories of teenage years. His youngest son features very heavily in the stories, as he was a constant feature whilst the book was being written, especially as he left a perfectly good job to join the circus.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wish you never grew up and certainly wonder why you ever had children.
£9.99 -
Ted Harrison's Rainbow Road
Jan Stirling and Ted Harrison, the celebrated Canadian painter, met in 2007 and felt an immediate connection. Jan spent more and more time with him, oblivious of their age difference, always feeling his acceptance of her quirky, candid nature. As a jazz musician, she appreciated his ability to improvise with words, without fear of making a mistake. She would suggest a subject and then write down in shorthand what he had to say. Although never edited, these improvs were called poems. They showed that even as his physical freedom diminished, he had a very rich mental life.
After Ted passed on, Jan revisited these poems, writing about her experiences with him up to her final visit in January 2015, the last day Ted was conscious. Each chapter is interspersed with Ted’s poems. The book shows an intimate side of Ted that deepens our appreciation for his life and work.
£8.99 -
Tears of No One
This is the true story of an elite Navy medical team in a secret mission to save an isolated tribe from extinction. During the year of 2008, the Brazilian Government sent the Navy hospital ship Oswaldo Cruz to the heart of the Amazonian forest, the intent was to locate and make contact with the female leader of the Korubo tribe, and discover the reason for the massive numbers of deaths of those individuals, who were possibly infected by an unknown disease.
This book will take you into a real heart of darkness adventure, through this history, which is narrated from the standpoint of Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Callia. You will travel aboard a Brazilian warship into uncharted rivers, will make the first contact with unknown tribes, fight river pirates and tropical diseases, survive the sinking of your boat and finally meet the mythic Korubo tribe, led by the fearless female warrior Maya, and her three husbands.
In a world deeply shaken by Covid and at the edge of a global war, this narrative takes us to a situation which proves that centenary conflicts may be solved through humanity, that science can defeat diseases, and that the love for the next one may change the world. And perhaps, at the end of this book, you may find yourself repeating the endless mantra of the Oswaldo Cruz crew members: Health wherever there is life!
£8.99