Over the centuries, wearing make-up has often been mocked as little more than frippery, on occasions applied with intent to deceive and, in more god-fearing times in history, even downright evil. The truth is cosmetics have always been important. In...

In an extract from his book Blithe Spirits: An Imaginative History of the Poltergeist, SD Tucker asks whether or not ghosts might be better thought of as being funny than as frightening. We do not think of ghosts as being...

He was an extraordinary man, living in extraordinary times. I had previously heard of Nicolò Costanzi and marvelled at the beauty of his patented ‘swan neck’ bow and intriguing hybrid stern designs, but it was in researching my first book...

I was born in 1929 so over the years have witnessed great technical, social, and cultural change. Railway operation and management styles have kept pace with these changes. With my lifelong interest in railway practice, in particular the construction and...

My character, you could say, is unscrupulous, selfish, disloyal, given to lying and drawn to criminal behaviour. Well, not my own, though some who know me might disagree with that, but the character of Oswald John Job, the subject of...

The thing I was most nervous about after writing Secret Keswick, was sending it to my local friends – I was sure they’d find some mistake or other that I’d made, but instead they loved it, with one of them...

Today, Eel Pie Island in the Thames at Twickenham is a quiet spot, best known for its many artists’ studios. But, as I learned while researching my book Secret Twickenham, Whitton, Teddington and The Hamptons, in the 1960s the island’s...

It’s always difficult to adopt an objective view about the place where you were born. If like the authors of this book, you grew up in one town, never moving away until adulthood, the place and the self become an...

Pretender (/pr1'ten.dər/) nounOne who puts forth a claim, or aspires to or aims at something; a claimant, candidate, or aspirant. Five hundred years since they walked and talked upon this earth, the Tudor dynasty remains a profitable and captivating industry...

Suppose you made a mistake – a monumental mistake. Suppose you married a young lady after a short acquaintance only to find she was not what you’d expected. Suppose, to compound matters, she thought the same about you; that while...