Born in 1910 Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum; she knew at first hand a soot-blackened world lit by candles & oil lamps where you slept in your clothes
- if you hadnt already been sewn into them for the winter
- & fought an unending battle with hunger & bed bugs. At its best life was lived on the bustling noisy streets where fish sellers jostled with hurdy-gurdy men organ grinders & street fighters where children dodged between the wheels of horse-drawn carts & where money could still be made by mudlarks & the rag & bone man. At the age of fifteen Rose left the noise & squalor of Hoxton & started work as a live-in maid at a house in the West End. Despite the poverty of her childhood nothing could have prepared her for the long hours the backbreaking work & the harshness of this new world; a world in which servants were treated as if they were less than human. It was a world in which Rose found herself working from six in the morning till nine at night in a house where the only unheated bedroom was the one she slept in. Here & in later grander houses Rose had to endure the strict hierarchy of the servants world where the maid was expected to put up with sex pests deranged employers verbal & even physical abuse. But however difficult life became Rose found something to laugh about & her remarkable spirit & gift for friendship shines through in her memories of a now-vanished world. This is upstairs downstairs as it really was.

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In 1943 Emma Smith joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters. She set out with two friends on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-olds freed from a middle-class background precipitated into the boating fraternity. They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham & coal from Coventry; how to splice ropes bail out bilge water keep the engine ticking over & steer through tunnels. They live off kedgeree & fried bread & jam adopt a kitten lose their bicycles laugh & quarrel & get progressively dirtier & tougher as the weeks go by. Maidens Trip" is a classic memoir of the growth to maturity of three young women in the exceptional circumstances of Britain at war." ...

Perfect for day trips & short breaks the OS Landranger Map series covers Great Britain with 204 detailed maps. Each map provides all the information you need to get to know your local area &

Includes:: places of interest tourist information picnic areas & camp sites plus Rights of Way information for England & Wales.

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OS Explorer Map is the Ordnance Surveys most detailed map & is recommended for anyone enjoying outdoor activities like walking horse riding & off-road cycling. Providing complete GB coverage the series details essential information such as youth hostels pubs & visitor information as well as rights of way permissive paths & bridleways. ...

Maidstone Corporation fi rst began operating trams on 14 July 1904 in conjunction with the municipal electricity supply. Motor buses were introduced from 7 April 1924 & to replace the trams which were being phased out through 1929 & 1930 trolleybuses were introduced on 1 May 1928. Towards the end of the 1960s it was decided that the trolleybuses should be phased out themselves & the Corporation continued operating buses alone until it ceased to exist in 1974. Using offi cial photographs commercial postcards enthusiasts pictures & ephemera this volume records the history of Maidstone Corporations transport operations until it was replaced by Maidstone Borough following the local government reorganisation. Eric has been interested in transport since the days when his journeys to Maidstone Grammar School involved a trolleybus ride & has spent his career working in public transport. He is a member of the M&D & East Kent Bus Club & a founder member of the Maidstone Postcard Club. ...

100 of the most popular Mail on Sunday" puzzles brought together in one fun-filled book. At last a compilation of general knowledge crosswords from your favourite Sunday newspaper! With over 100 puzzles with questions on a myriad of subjects there is plenty here to flex your memory muscles & keep you entertained for hours. From classical music to the latest films " Mail on Sunday Prize Crossword Volume 1" is perfect for quiz fans & puzzle lovers alike." ...

At the urgent plea of his old friend Commander Buchanan of Scotland Yard Tweed once ace detective now Deputy Chief SIS visits Mrs Bella Main formidable matriarch controlling the Main Chance the most powerful private bank in Europe. Bella tells Tweed & Paula Grey his assistant that she has refused an enormous offer from Calouste Gubenkian the most ruthless & villainous man in Europe. Within days of their visit Bella is murdered. Tweed & Paula return to investigate the atrocious act. The banks HQ is based in a huge Elizabethan manor hidden in The Forest a vast area in the deep south of Engl&. Tweed has already met members of the two families run by their forefathers for generations. Was Bella murdered by one of them
- or is it the work of the vicious Calouste? The movement never stops changing to Caloustes Chateau Les Rochers in the Belgian Ardennes. A ferocious battle takes place. Two more murders are committed at the manor. Tweed & Paula race to tiny Seacove on the rugged Cornish coast to prevent another murder. Finally Tweed proves the Bank founded in 1912 was based on a brutal crime all those years ago.
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No matter which industry a company is a part of its profitability like its products is driven by the reliability & performance of its plant (s). The fundamentals for maintenance found in this volume are applicable to a multitude of industries: power process materials manufacturing transportation communication & many others. This book shows the engineer how to select install maintain & troubleshoot critical plant machinery equipment & systems. New to this edition: new material

Includes:: a chapter on inspections providing practical guidelines for effective visual inspections the key to effective preventive maintenance. Also included in the revision will be multiple chapters on equipment such as pumps compressors & fans. It provides practical knowledge about plant machinery equipment & systems for the new hire or the veteran engineer; covers a wide array of topics from shaft alignment & bearings to rotor balancing & flexible intermediate drives; & delivers must-have information to the engineer which he/she will use on a daily basis in day-to-day activities that will affect the reliability & profitability of the plant.

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Its a matter of procedure I explained. Strictly for the record. You dont get sacked from this job unless you did what Thompson did. What did he do then? We never mention it. Enter the bizarre world of the bus driver a strange but all too familiar universe in which the timetable & the maintenance of headway are sacred but where the routes can change with the click of an inspectors fingers. This brilliant short novel is a gently absurd examination of the British bus system & its peculiarities where the demands of the hapless passengers are virtually ignored & where it is fine to be a little bit late but utterly unforgivable to be a moment early. ...

This is a charming mermaid story for Egmont's Blue Banana series by master storyteller Michael Morpurgo. Robbie says swimming is easy. You just have to pretend you're a mermaid. But that doesn't help Mairi. She isn't even sure that mermaids are real. Blue bananas are illustrated books for NC Level 2 readers learning to tackle longer prose for the first time with the support of extensive illustrations & speech bubbles. They are carefully designed with education in mind supporting children's understanding of vocabulary & punctuation. Blue Bananas explore the feelings & emotions of characters in a clear fashion. ...