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Independence to Freedom
This is a story of migration from rural Gujarat to Nairobi, Kenya and the impact of the struggles for independence from British rule on a traditional Hindu Gujarati family, and finally to London in 1949.
Here, the family navigated a life in between two cultures maintaining and imbibing the best of both. Hemkunver lived a life of bhakti – devotion. Manilal, her husband, followed a life of engaging with the world but spiritually grounded in his love for Indian classical music and philosophy. These characteristics were passed on to the main protagonist Viram, who from a very early age fell in love with Indian classical music. His abilities and interests were varied though – so he did not mind playing his sitar with jazz, or playing with Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin or composing for films, TV and radio, whilst also developing a successful career in business. His desire to create awareness for one of the most sophisticated music systems of the world, led him to become an authority as a performer, advocate and producer of Indian music throughout the UK and Europe, creating around one hundred iconic events per year. He overcame the prejudice he faced from the British arts elite and jealous Indians by embarking on a journey into Vedantic philosophy to find his freedom.
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Indelible: A Social Worker in the Wake of Civil War
Driven by a long-standing desire, her education and her faith, mental health professional, Wendy Nordick, and her husband Bill Blair, a retired judge, plunged into a two-year assignment with Canadian University Services Overseas. She believed her 25 years of clinical social work were appropriate credentials to help a country with the highest rates of suicide in the world. Bill hoped to work for peace and justice. They felt they became laughingstocks when work visa delays left them homeless. Days before leaving, Wendy’s father died. Once in Sri Lanka, she shivered in a rickety beer factory cum hospital where she taught mental health skills. A year later, she was transported into steamy, bombed out Jaffna, the epicenter of a civil war to teach a trauma team who worked with the war affected and tortured during the war. She was humbled by what she did not know and sought help from a previous refugee.
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In Steel and Computing the Rise of the Dip Tech Sandwich Generation
This book is intended as a legacy of the experience of several years in science-based roles being initially challenged technically but in later years challenged and rewarded by leadership roles. This was amongst Sandwich educated colleagues who were motivated in part by themselves and partly by the community around them. Such is the nature of Sandwich Education both in terms of attitude and competence that it is a privilege to be part of this community of graduates.The authors consider that the Sandwich initiative should be a vital steppingstone in the nation’s education. Therefore, it is recommended to the Department of Education and the Department of Industry and to young people contemplating the future direction of their education that they embrace Sandwich education.
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In Search of the Queen of Sheba
The figure of the Queen of Sheba spans religion, history and geography. She came from the South as a queen of trade to embark on an affair which changed the course of humanity. She is an icon, a temptress, a political power. She is claimed by at least two countries, Yemen and Ethiopia, by art and by many societies. She stands for black empowerment. Is she real or did we need to invent her? Sarah Sands, a celebrated British journalist, goes on a quest to find her, ending up setting sail in a warship up the Red Sea on her trail.
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In Search of Mina Wylie
In 1912, against a backdrop of growing feminist and national movements, the Australian public united behind a fundraising campaign to send two female swimmers to Stockholm to compete, for the first time, at an Olympic Games. Coogee resident, Mina Wylie, was one of those women, and after winning silver at the 1912 Olympics she went on to become one of the greatest swimmers Australia ever produced. Her career coincided with a growing view of beach culture and swimming as essential to a unique Australian way of life, and Mina became a role model for the vigorous and healthy ‘Australian Girl’. As one of the first female sporting celebrities, she typified the new modern woman as she travelled to Europe and the USA, maintained an independent lifestyle and disregarded societal conventions. In 1975, Mina was selected as an Honoree to the Florida based International Swimming Hall of Fame. When her request to the Federal Government for expenses to attend the induction ceremony was denied, a nationwide fundraising campaign launched Mina back into the spotlight. Sixty years after the Australian public had sent Mina to the Stockholm Olympics, the populace re-embraced the forgotten champion and sent her to Florida to take her place amongst the Greats of international swimming. The book rediscovers Mina Wylie, a woman who twice inspired a nation, sixty years apart. And a woman who was determined not be written out of Australian sporting history.
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In At The Sharp End (Stories From The Front Line Of The Music Business)
Anyone interested in music will consider this to be essential reading! Covering every genre, it provides intimate inside stories about many artists, songwriters, and music execs never previously documented. Those included are KYLIE MINOGUE, BURT BACHARACH, GEORGE MARTIN, BOB GELDOF, STOCK/AITKEN/WATERMAN, SIMON COWELL, RONNIE WOOD, JUSTIN HAYWARD, GRAHAM GOULDMAN, LEO SAYER, PAUL JONES, JASON DONOVAN, SINITTA, ALLAN CLARKE (The Hollies) and many more. Revelations: How Kylie nearly missed her big chance; when Simon Cowell lost it all; how George Martin signed The Beatles out of pure sympathy; the rise and subsequent disappearance of Clive Calder – the wealthiest man in music; what motivated Bob Geldof to stage the greatest show of all time; where the classic songs originated from: Burt Bacharach, Elton John, Lieber and Stoller, Neil Sedaka, Gene Pitney, Randy Edelman, Tony Hatch, Tony Macaulay, Roger Greenway, Les Reed/Barry Mason plus modern day songwriter of the year, Jamie Hartman.
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Imperfect Recollections
Welcome to the fascinating world of general medical practice in Australia.
This book is a collection of stories from the author’s rich and varied career spanning over 40 years.
During that time, he has been a country GP, delivering babies and doing anaesthetics, a retrieval doctor with the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, worked in the emergency departments of various hospitals and followed his passion of motor sport medicine, especially internationally in the fields of Formula 1 and World Rallying.
The stories are both funny and poignantly sad. They are told in the style that invites the reader to sit down, share a glass of something with the author and tell a few tales, like old friends.
Many of us see ourselves or people we know in these pages… You may be right or you may be wrong, but then that would be telling!£3.50 -
If You Wake at Midnight
This is the story of the greatest scandal inflicted on British servicemen and women in modern times: drug-induced violence and suicide – and an officer determined to find the truth.
It was supposed to be a wonder drug that would save the world from malaria. But soon after Lariam was brought to international markets in the late 1980s, users of this handy, once-a-week pill began to experience shocking side-effects. Yet over the coming decades, as the drug became implicated in ever-increasing acts of unexplained violence, homicide and suicide, the Ministry of Defence continued to force Lariam on tens, or perhaps hundreds, of thousands of unsuspecting people deployed to some of the world’s most dangerous places.
Enduring years of Lariam-induced nightmares, former soldier Andrew Marriott realised something was horribly wrong; not just with the drug itself but with the institutions responsible for its use and safety. So began a journey towards the truth, a truth that vested interests in the United Kingdom and around the globe were determined to conceal.
In a unique exposé of an entirely preventable pharmaceutical disaster, Marriott turns a spotlight on the murky world of clandestine military and industrial research in the United States in which Lariam was developed. With other survivors, including some very courageous women, he undertakes a forensic examination of a scandal extending to the upper echelons of government and the armed forces. A culture of betrayal and dishonour had imperilled those defending our country to the most insidious and silent form of friendly fire.
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If You Can't Take a Joke
The gates of RAF Swinderby were the entrance to an alien world in the eyes of a young man with no previous military experience, and arrival there came as a shock to the senses; a shock which the instructors did their level best to maximise, by giving every instruction and making every observation in an ear-splitting shriek that could melt earwax. From dawn until dusk there was no respite as a host of alien concepts were hammered into us from a variety of different sources, nor from dusk until midnight when we would be cleaning every nook and cranny of our barrack block until everything gleamed, although it never seemed to be shiny enough for the corporal or the sergeant.
Gradually though, the unfamiliar became familiar as those alien concepts sank in and stopped being alien, as we learned and toughened up, becoming the best we thought we could be, and then exceeded that and started to become as good as the instructors thought we could be; until we really learned how to take a joke.
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I Will Protect Her
The cover of this autobiography shows I.R. Dujon at the time of publication mothering her younger, 6-year-old self.
I Will Protect Her details the adolescent years in which Ingrid was subject to tragic child abuse, while the people in charge of her welfare and safety neglected their most basic responsibilities at every point possible. This led to a prolonged period of suffering for her and for so many others. After years of fighting, a full criminal investigation into the crimes was relaunched. Victims were able finally to expose the police and local authorities for their systematic failure to recognise, report, and act upon avoidable and life-altering abuse.
The collation of notes, factual evidence, dates and times as recorded by herself and supported by many others affected, led to the prosecution of one of London’s most notorious paedophiles, who was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Only now, after years of counselling, therapy, and personal development, Ingrid has managed to finally close this chapter of her life for good. Today Dujon is a proud mother of five children, all now adults. Dujon’s goal is to share her story and inspire any and everyone who has ever been subject to any form of abuse. Ingrid hopes to educate a wider audience who may not be familiar with the patterns and signs of child abuse, and to paint a detailed picture of how people who are external to an abusive situation can still do so much to prevent or change things for the better.
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I Was a London Firefighter
What is a firefighter?
They are the person next door…
They are like you and me with warts and worries and unfulfilled dreams.
Yet they stand taller than most of us.
The latest book from author and retired fireman David Pike, I Was a London Firefighter is an anthology of factual narratives and fictional tales loosely based around the personal experiences of individual members of the London Fire Brigade. Ranging from the mid-19th century to the present day, the book includes direct reminiscences by former firefighters alongside descriptions of key historical figures like Massey Shaw, Sidney Gamble and Joe Milner. It takes in such subjects as the IRA’s 20'year bombing campaign in London and the changing status of female firefighters.
Running through the book is a series of gripping historical narratives subtitled ‘Yesteryear’s Fires’, depicting the heroic professionalism of firefighters confronted by truly harrowing disasters. Some of these remain all-too-familiar, such as the King’s Cross fire of 1987 which claimed the lives of 31 people; others, no less terrible, have faded into distant memory. The book ends with a fresh and compelling description of a horrifying tragedy that no one can have forgotten: 2017’s Grenfell Tower fire.
I Was a London Firefighter shares with David’s previous works – Beyond the Flames, London Firefighters and Fire-Floats and Fireboats – a careful and comprehensive approach to historical research, an eye for striking and unusual narrative details and an understated humour. Above all, it shows an unwavering appreciation of and empathy for the concerns and drives of the ordinary firefighter, born of David’s own experiences as a fireman.£3.50 -
I Stand Amazed...
On June 1st, 2013, my mum, Dee, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. This book documents our family’s battle against the disease, our hopes, our dreams and our love.
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