Amberley Publishing

50 Gems in Cheshire is my third contribution to Amberley’s ‘Gems’ series and you’d think I’d have got the hang of it by now. 50 Gems of the Yorkshire Dales was a jewel filled quest in a national park I knew like the back of my hand while although 50 Gems of Derbyshire took me to a different part of...

The Decisive Battle that Shaped World War Two in Europe The Allied Intelligence Advantage The first-generation histories of D-Day and the Allied campaign in, and breakout from Normandy were written at a time when the success of Allied codebreakers remained a deep secret. Hence the contributions of ULTRA, an umbrella term for the product of work against the German codes...

An Alternative Road Trip The road trip. Romance on the road. You, your car, the open road. A discovery waiting to happen, revelations that lie over the crest of the next hill. Jack Kerouac wrote of his own road trip as he travelled across the United States from east to west by bus, car and, when the latter two options...

When writing Secret Evesham I had two particular ideas in mind. First, I wanted to debunk a handful of long-standing local stories because, well, they have no basis in history (though they’re undeniably a bit of fun). Second, and much more importantly, there is a lot of “hidden history” which I wanted to explore and share. Pavement slab in Vine...

Historic England holds an extraordinary archive of images, both historical and new, of England’s amazing architectural heritage. This particular book about Worcestershire represents a small and select slice from that remarkable collection. The trick for this book was working out a way to gather together a representative mix of photographs (say 50/50 in colour and black-and-white) from right across the...

A Thousand-Year History of Its Lands, Sea and Peoples In 1969 I moved to Berlin with my husband, who was working in a liaison role with the Soviets. As a result, unlike most people from the West, we both went frequently into East Germany – in my case, a weekly shopping trip across the famous Glienicke Bridge to Potsdam being...

The Scandalous Life of Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey I did not really mean to write the biography of Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey (1753-1821). At school I had enjoyed history. So when I went to university to study law with a view to becoming a lawyer, I promised myself that I would retire early from the law and once...

Another Chapter in the Secret History of the Rochester Medway Towns A general view of Rochester as seen from the north, with both the castle and cathedral clearly visible. (c. Ewan Cambell MacDougall, Secret Rochester, Amberley Publishing) Strange it must have been in December 1812, when a fleet of twenty-two warships gradually, over a period of a few days, slowly...

Extract from Secret Sunderland: Cretehawser – The Concrete Boat If you go down to the riverside at Claxheugh Rock (pronounced ‘Clatchy’ locally) in South Hylton, and the tide is just right, you might see an interesting lump of concrete shaped like a boat sticking up from the water. It may not look like much, but this is an interesting part...

Saturday 15th July 2017 was a day to remember. Well it would be if only I could remember it. I know I was in bed having not been awake long. Then a thunderclap pain in the back of my head hit. I recall taking two paracetamol and lying down. It was about six weeks later before I was well enough...