Metro Publishing – The Bell Bookshop

The Class of ’37

Emma — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE___’A moving microhistory of working-class girlhood’ BBC History Magazine___It is 1937 in a northern mill-town and a class of twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are writing about their lives, their world, and the things that matter to them. They tell of cobbled streets and crowded homes; the Coronation festivities and holidays to Blackpool; laughter and fun alongside poverty and hardship. They are destined for the cotton mill but they dream of being film stars. Class of ’37 uses the writing of these young girls, as collected by the research organisation Mass Observation, to rediscover this lost world, transporting readers back in time to a smoky industrial town in an era before the introduction of a Welfare State, where once again the clouds of war were beginning to gather. Woven within this rich, authentic history are the twists and turns of the girls’ lives from childhood to beyond, from their happiest times to the most heart-breaking of their sorrows. A compelling social history, this intimate reconstruction of working-class life in 1930s Britain is a haunting and emotional account of a bygone age.___Praise for Class of ’37’A treasure trove of childhood’ – i paper’A fascinating account’ – Bolton News’We’re used to Mass Observation revealing adult treasures, but to have them from these irrepressible children is doubly rewarding. An engrossing and gently heart-breaking insight into this chatter of still lives before everything changed, and a wonderful rear-view glimpse of their vanishing world’ – Simon Garfield’Characters […] shine brightly from every page’ – Daily Mail

Red Herrings and White Elephants

Emma — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘The man with all the answers in Albert Jack’ Daily Express’Square meal’ ‘Load of old codswallop’ ‘Egg on your face’ ‘In the limelight’. . .The English language is littered with everyday expressions like these, but have you ever stopped to wonder what they really mean and where they come from? Red Herrings and White Elephants delves deep into the fabric of English phraseology and in doing so explores the wide-ranging factors and fascinating linguistic history which continues to inform the way we speak to this day. So whether you want to impress whilst hobnobbing with clever folk, lick your pub quiz knowledge into shape, or simply add a feather to your linguistic cap, you’ll soon be full of incredible facts that leave you feeling as bright as a button.

The Natural Gardener: A Lifetime of Gardening By the Phases of the Moon

Emma — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Humans and the world around us have been governed by the waxing and waning of the moon since the planet came into being. Over the centuries different civilisations have embraced these natural cycles, and so lunar gardening has been around for as long as man has pulled food from the soil; once practised by the Incas and Native Americans, this tried and trusted method has been largely forgotten.John Harris, head gardener at Tresillian Estate in Cornwall, has been using Moon Gardening for over forty years. The methods he uses can be implemented anywhere, you do not need fancy tools, expensive seeds or substantial acreage, but instead, given time, patience and care, the results can be breath-taking. This is gardening at its most natural and organic.The Natural Gardener charts John’s story from a rudderless young lad in a Cornish village to being charged with the salvation of the long-neglected gardens at Tresillian. As he shares how to follow these simple principles, he imparts his abundance of horticultural knowledge from years spent working in harmony with the soil, providing a timely link back to nature and the reassuring regularity of the seasons.

Your Life In My Hands – a Junior Doctor’s Story

Emma — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF DEAR LIFE’I am a junior doctor. It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm.’How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a medical novice who makes decisions which – if you get them wrong – might forever alter, or end, a person’s life?In Your Life in My Hands, television journalist turned junior doctor Rachel Clarke captures the extraordinary realities of life on the NHS frontline. During the historic junior doctor strikes of 2016, Rachel was at the forefront of the campaign against the government’s imposed contract upon young doctors. Her heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today’s NHS is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain’s most vital public institution and a love letter of optimism and hope to that same health service.