On 15 May 1957/58 Vickers Valiant V-Bomber XD818 under the command of Wg Cdr Kenneth Hubbard OC 49 Squadron RAF dropped Britains first live thermonuclear bomb. The success of Operation Grapple broadcast to the world that the UK had the resolve & the capability to protect her own democracy & that of her Commonwealth. It was a major breakthrough that ensured Britain maintained her place in the most senior influential positions of the United Nations & other corridors of world power & in the ensuing years provide Britains deterrent throughout the decades of the Cold War. The theme of this book is to explain how the RAF selected & trained the crews who would be responsible for the precision dropping of the several weapons that would detonate during Grapple. It also provides a complete background to the parts played by all other services during this unique period in British history. ...

Ethan Blake is seventeen & desperate to escape from his dead-end life. When he sees someone B.A.S.E. jump from the top of his block of flats it changes the way he sees the world for ever. Soon Ethan is caught up in the adrenaline-fuelled world of skydiving. Hes a natural so its no surprise when hes invited to join an elite skydive team but is he signing up for more than just jumping out of planes? The teams involved in covert military operations
- missions that require a special kind of guts missions so secret even MI5 denies all knowledge.
...

The Raiders are a talented young skydiving team
- with a secret. They are also a highly trained group of covert operatives carrying
...

The Raiders are a talented young skydiving team
- with a secret. They are also a highly trained group of covert operatives carrying
...

The Raiders are a talented young skydiving team
- with a secret. They are also a highly trained group of covert operatives carrying
...

Droving has been hugely important in shaping farming practice across Northumberland for 1 000 years or more. The necessity of transporting sheep & cattle has changed the landscape & developed the roads & buildings & at one time animals would be herded from as far a field as Scotland & Irel&. Today the scene is very different but the legacy of the drovers can still be seen & enjoyed all over the region. Local archaeologists Ian Roberts Alan Rushworth & Richard Calrton have been determined to preserve this history on behalf of the Northumberland National Park Authority. Following the development of droving in Northumberland from prehistoric times through Middle Ages the eighteenth century & right up to date they offer the definitive history of this significant activity. ...

One of the great classics of Scottish history The Drove Roads of Scotland interweaves folklore social comment & economic history in a fascinating account of Scotlands droving trade & the routes by which cattle & sheep were brought from every corner of the land to markets in central Scotl&. In pastoral Scotland the breeding & movement of livestock were fundamental to the lives of the people. The story of the drove roads takes the reader on an engrossing tour of Scottish history from the lawless cattle driving by reivers in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries to the legitimate movement of stock which developed after the Union of the Crowns by which time the large-scale movement of stock to established markets had become an important part of Scotlands economy & a vital aspect of commercial life in the Empire. Haldanes work is one of the great classics of Scottish history. ...

Shortly after completing THE DROWNED & THE SAVED Primo Levi committed suicide. The matter of his death was sudden violent & unpremiditated & there were some who argue that he killed himself because he was tormented by guilt
- guilt that he had survived the horrors of Auschwitz while others better than he had gone to the wall. THE DROWNED & THE SAVED is Levis impassioned attempt to understand the rationale behind the concentration camps was completed shortly before his tragic death in 1987. THE DROWNED & THE SAVED dispels the myth that Primo Levi forgave the Germans for what they did to his people. He didnt & couldnt forgive. He refused however to indulge in what he called the bestial vice of hatred which is an entirely different matter. The voice that sounds in his writing is that of a reasonable man...it warns & reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again. A would-be tyrant is waiting in the wings with beautiful words on his lips. The book is constantly impressing on us the need to learn from the past to make sense of the senseless PAUL BAILEY
...

On the third day there were PIRATES! Arthur Penhaligon finds himself on an adventure that will pit him against pirates storms explosions & a vast beast that eats everything it encounters. Will our unwitting hero be able to find the third part of the Will & claim the Third Key? No rest for poor Arthur Penhaligon. As Grim Tuesday ends he discovers a square of stiff cardboard under his pillow gilt-edged & inscribed with the following words: LADY WEDNESDAY Trustee of the Architect & Duchess of the Border Sea has great pleasure in inviting ARTHUR PENHALIGON to a Particular Luncheon of Seventeen Removes Transport has been arranged RSVP not required! It's an invitation he cannot refuse. From hospital room to the high seas Arthur finds himself on an adventure that will pit him against pirates storms explosions of Nothing-laced gunpowder & a vast beast that eats everything it encounters. Through it all he is drawn deeper into the central mystery of the House. Arthur must find the third part of the Will & claim the Third Key -- not just for himself but for the millions (if not trillions) who will suffer if he doesn't. The first step? Surviving life aboard ship on the Border Sea! ...

When London is lost beneath the rising tides unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of Crash & Cocaine Nights. Set in the near future the ice caps have melted & the planet basks in an unendurable heat. London is a primordial swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz & there are unconfirmed sightings of primeval reptiles swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others embark on harebrained schemes to drain the submerged streets in search of treasure. But Dr Robert Kerans has come to accept this submarine city & finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it... ...