Dennis Potter was born & brought up in the Forest of Dean- a 'strange & beautiful place', as he described it in the last interview before his death, 'rather ugly villages in beautiful landscape, a heart- shaped place between two rivers, somehow slightly cut off from the rest of Engl&... with a people as warm as anywhere else, but they seemed warmer to me.' It was a childhood which informed all his television work, from his first documentary to such classic dramas as The Singing Detective.

The Changing Forest, first published in 1962, is Potter's deeply personal study of that small area- its people, traditions, ceremonies & institutions- at a time of profound cultural & social change in the late 1950s & early '60s. With extraordinary precision & feeling he describes the fabric of a world whose old ways are yielding to the new: habits altering; expectations growing; work, leisure, language itself changing under the impact of the new television, of commercial jingles & the early Elvis. &, with powerful sympathy & wit, he asks whether the gains of modernity have, for the individuals & society he so marvellously evokes, been worth the loss.

Part autobiography of one of this century's greatest writers, part elegy for a vanishing way of life, part testament to the abiding humanity that underlies all Potter's work, this exquisite, passionate & brillinat book is a classic of its kind.



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This remarkable book provides an irresistibly idiosyncratic portrait of London in miniature. From its marvellously illustrated pages leaps a collection of tender, comic, shocking, sometimes alarming vignettes, a rogues' gallery of characters past & present
- the famous, infamous & unfamous
- who have, over the last 400 years, made this bohemian corner of the city what it is. Between Oxford Street & Euston Road, bordered by Portland Place, Gower Street & Tottenham Court Road, lies a mysteriously evocative area, close to London's heart, known as Fitzrovia. It has a strange & varied history, one that also holds up a mirror to the rest of the capital. For the avant-garde, from painters to actors & artisans, Fitzrovia has been a creative hub, full of studios, craftshops & trysting places. Revolutionaries & radicals gathered in Fitzrovia, which has seen more than its share of murder & mayhem. Spivs & spies, princes & prostitutes jostled in its streets. Alongside grandeur & elegance, exiles & emigrés occupied shabby tenements & introduced new styles of café & restaurant. Medical professionals mingled, in institutions set up by freethinkers, with intellectuals & inventors. Radio & television programmes broadcast from Fitzrovia shaped the culture of a nation & an empire. Independent publishing clusters near the legendary pubs of Fitzrovia.

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The chariot changed the face of ancient warfare. First in West Asia & Egypt, then in India & China, charioteers came to dominate the battlefield. In 1274 B. C. at Kadesh in present-day Syria
- where the untried pharaoh Ramesses II was nearly defeated by the Hittites
- some 5, 000 chariots were deployed in battle. Its use as a war machine is graphically recounted in Indian epics & Chinese chronicles. Homer's Iliad tells of the attack on Troy by Greek heroes who rode in chariots In 326 B. C. Alexander the Great faced charioteers in northern India, while in 55 B. C., on a Kent beach, Julius Caesar was met by British chariots.

Even though the chariot was the favourite conveyance of both gods & kings, there were risks when it was driven at high speed. It is more than possible that the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun died from injuries sustained in a chariot accident. Because of the danger involved, chariot racing attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators. So enthusiastic were they that the Roman emperor Nero could not resist driving his own ten-horse chariot at the Olympic Games: he fell out but still won the prize. Rivalry between groups of spectators at chariot races often ignited urban riots. In Constantinople, in 532 A. D., a three-day disturbance left 30, 000 dead. Yet great charioteers like Porphyrius still emerged. He was a champion into his sixties, provoking the comment that 'neither strength nor swift horses know how to win, but the brains of the charioteer.'

This unique book traces the rise & fall of the chariot right across the Old World, from Britain to Korea. Illustrated throughout & exploring the chariot's legacy
- not least as depicted in Hollywood films
- it provides a broad-ranging & fascinating view of the world's first revolutionary war machine.







...

The chariot changed the face of ancient warfare. First in West Asia & Egypt, then in India & China, charioteers came to dominate the battlefield. In 1274 B. C. at Kadesh in present-day Syria
- where the untried pharaoh Ramesses II was nearly defeated by the Hittites
- some 5, 000 chariots were deployed in battle. Its use as a war machine is graphically recounted in Indian epics & Chinese chronicles. Homer's Iliad tells of the attack on Troy by Greek heroes who rode in chariots In 326 B. C. Alexander the Great faced charioteers in northern India, while in 55 B. C., on a Kent beach, Julius Caesar was met by British chariots.

Even though the chariot was the favourite conveyance of both gods & kings, there were risks when it was driven at high speed. It is more than possible that the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun died from injuries sustained in a chariot accident. Because of the danger involved, chariot racing attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators. So enthusiastic were they that the Roman emperor Nero could not resist driving his own ten-horse chariot at the Olympic Games: he fell out but still won the prize. Rivalry between groups of spectators at chariot races often ignited urban riots. In Constantinople, in 532 A. D., a three-day disturbance left 30, 000 dead. Yet great charioteers like Porphyrius still emerged. He was a champion into his sixties, provoking the comment that 'neither strength nor swift horses know how to win, but the brains of the charioteer.'

This unique book traces the rise & fall of the chariot right across the Old World, from Britain to Korea. Illustrated throughout & exploring the chariot's legacy
- not least as depicted in Hollywood films
- it provides a broad-ranging & fascinating view of the world's first revolutionary war machine.







...

When you're sixteen, pregnant & alone, sixties London is anything but swinging...

Charity Stratton's bleak childhood

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Charity Stratton's bleak childhood is changed for ever when both her parents are killed in a fire. Separated by the authorities from her younger brothers & sister, Charity is sent out to work as a skivvy in a boys' boarding school. Her loneliness & misery are eased when she falls deeply in love with the dashing but fickle sixth-former, Hugh Mainwaring, but when she discovers she is pregnant with Hugh's baby she soon realises just how alone she really is.

Determined to be reunited with her siblings & to make something of herself, Charity runs away to London & begins to forge a new life.

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When Fate & a chivalrous impulse combine to saddle Viscount Desford with a friendless homeless waif named Cherry Steane, to whom else should he turn in such a scrape but his old childhood playmate, Henrietta Silverdale? For all they refused to oblige their parents by marrying, they have always been the best of friends. But as Desford pursues Cherry's lickpenny grandfather & reprobate father around unfashionable watering places & the seedier fringes of society, Hetta is forced to wonder whether he might not, at last, have fallen in love. Without the timely intervention of his scapegrace brother Simon, & Hetta's worthy suitor Gary Nethercott, Desford is in danger of making a rare mess of his affairs. ...