David Leslie

The environmental quality and popularity of any tourist destination is the outcome of sustained development, shaped by the socio-economic and physical dimensions of the local environment. Protecting the ‘living landscape’ requires recognizing, promoting and developing the links between economic, social and environmental objectives. This book therefore examines the tourism business in terms of ‘greening’ the local economy, people and environment, establishing the green agenda and investigating its application to the tourism sector.

David's third A to Z guide to the Northern Ireland coastline finds him travelling the entire length of the coast from Derry/Londonderry all the way to Newry, following in the footsteps of the Rev. Canon Hugh Forde who published Round the Coast of Northern Ireland in 1928. In "Round the Hidden Coast of Northern Ireland From A to Z" David Leslie returns to the land of his previous two books. This time David takes an orderly route around the entire coastline revisiting many of Forde's selections and supplementing this new guide with several of his own choices. Why "Hidden"? David has tried to pick out locations, people, stories and events that may have otherwise escaped the attention of the general public. There's a wart well, a dolmen not marked on maps, a once-famous honey industry, an organ powered by water, a top secret legacy from the Cold War, an award-winning viewpoint, a beach that can sing and a headland that sighs, a cabin lit by love and sunshine, a courthouse building that left one county for another, an ancient monument in a front garden, a tombolo, a disabled rocking stone, the story of the Belfast Bap, a deadly duel, a witchcraft trial, a secret garden, a narrow escape for a teenager, a cemetery without any bodies, a lost kingdom, a wood-working widow, a nineteenth century massacre, a costly error on the world's biggest ocean liner, an evergreen oak tree, a forgotten poet, a strangely-tolling bell, a boulder that flew with the flick of a finger and a squeeze gut and that's not all. The result is a book that tours the length of Northern Ireland's coast offering around a hundred or so destinations, many of which don't usually get a mention in the tourist guides. Also available from David Leslie: The Antrim Coast From A to ZThe Coasts of Down and Derry From A to Z

The coastline of Northern Ireland has sustained thousands of people over many generations and seen many conflicts with unwelcome visitors. Only in recent times has it attracted the attention of welcome visitors from overseas. This book picks up where The Antrim Coast From A to Z left off and concludes David's tour around the Northern Irish coast. Don't be fooled into thinking that Antrim is the filling in the sandwich, with Down and Londonderry as the bread. These two counties have coastline features to rival anything that County Antrim can offer. The tour will take in areas of genuinely outstanding natural beauty such as Strangford Lough, Magilligan Point and the Mourne Mountains. We'll explore feats of engineering including Derry's bridges over the Foyle River, the Mourne Wall and Silent Valley Reservoir and the Ordnance Survey's ground-breaking nineteenth-century mapping of Ireland. We'll find out about world-famous landmarks such as Mussenden Temple as well as lesser-known ones including a very old and strange mound in Downpatrick. We'll walk the city walls of Derry and attempt an ascent of Scrabo Tower. a There are some very strange stories inside the book too. There's a man who was hanged for murder - twice, a village whose entire population disappeared and two sculptures that have been moved - in Bangor intentionally, and on Binevenagh maliciously. Find out how C. S. Lewis and General Eisenhower are connected with the region and learn about some remarkable women including Elizabeth Bloxham and Sarah Currie Palmer. You'll find out about an important centre for Jewish evacuees from the Holocaust and the area's important contributions to the field of aviation. Down and Derry have several locations that have either featured in or inspired works of literature or for the silver screen - these range from the Back to the Future movies all the way through to Dracula. Whether you're looking for sandy beaches, dunes, wetlands, hills or mountains, the coastlines of these two counties will have something to satisfy you. You may already know the region well, or you may feel like a stranger entering a strange land. Either way there's sure to be something for you.

With a focus on the creation and distribution of packaged holidays, this text covers the fundamentals of business and the relationship between tour operators and destinations. With particular reference to the sustainability of both parties, it reviews the impacts and influences of tour operations and practices on destinations within the overriding context of tour operator responsibility. It addresses the entirety of this key component of the tourism sector, and reflects the shift in recent years from traditional 'sun, sea and sand' holiday to more bespoke packages. Taking into account tour operators as a growing factor among the major emergent economies of the world, this book is: - The first textbook to provide such in-depth content of tour operators and operations. - Written by authors with industry, research and teaching experience. - A wealth of information regarding popular eco, nature and adventure trips, as well as myriad niche and special interest products. Full of international and highly topical case studies, exercises and discussion questions, Tour Operators and Operations: Development, Management and Responsibility is a fundamental text for students of tourism.

A history book, geography book and trivia guide all rolled into one book that can also help you to plan your next trip. If it is a conventional guidebook you want, then you might be better off elsewhere, but if you like to dig a little deeper into the places you go to, then this book could be just what you are looking for . Take a wandering tour up, down and around the entire Lincolnshire coastline covering everywhere from the Humber Estuary to the Wash. If you are new to the area, this guide book will give you plenty of ideas for places to visit in or near to the main tourist resorts of Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe and Skegness as well as the two main centres of industry - Boston and Grimsby. The Lincolnshire coast has miles of unspoilt wilderness to explore, from marshlands to dunes and fens to beaches - learn more about the nature reserves, wildlife trust areas, a longstanding seal colony and a brand new coastal observatory. Find out how the resort towns came to be so popular, how the influence of the likes of Billy Butlin, P. T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill helped to determine the character of these seaside venues. Don't expect a technical masterpiece - this is a quick read to get you in the mood to find out even more - whether its windmills, railways, piers or geology that interests you? The author has researched widely and includes many more recommended reads within the book - where these are freely available online, hyperlinks are included. Extracts from local and national newspaper accounts going back up to 250 years help to give a sense of historical realism, enhancing such stories as the 1953 flood that devastated much of Lincolnshire's agricultural land and killed hundreds. This is a companion to "The Yorkshire Coast From A to Z" and will be followed by more books in the same series including The Antrim Coast and ... Bolsover

Between Belfast and Portrush can be found fantastic beaches, stunning cliffs, wild mountains and even wilder glens. The road that links Northern Ireland's greatest city with its premier seaside resort has been frequently heralded one of the world's best drives. Much of the Antrim Coast is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and/or an Area of Special Scientific Interest - and a World Heritage Site, to boot Like his other books in this series, David meanders through the valleys, forests, towns and villages of the Antrim Coast by taking in the sights, history, geology, and many of the people that make this such a special place. How did the Giant's Causeway get its name? Where was the worlds first Hydro-electric powered rail service? Which former pop star owns a nineteenth century tower in Cushendall? Why does Rathlin Island have a building named after Richard Branson? How many died before the Titanic hit the iceberg? Why would you want to climb to the top of a gas holder in Carrickfergus? Are there nine or ten Glens of Antrim? Why was an elephant allowed to roam the streets of Newtownabbey during World War II? These and many other questions are answered in The Antrim Coast From A to Z. The guide includes over 50 suggestions for further reading, many of which can be downloaded freely by following the hyperlinks at the end of each chapter.

When the crowd gathered to see the hangman launching teenager Robert Smith into eternity on a wet Tuesday in 1868, it was the last time this public spectacle would be witnessed in Scotland. Smith's crime was heinous, his public punishment brutal. And, finally, it was the end of a tragic public theatre which had drawn eager, baying crowds for more than a thousand years. Launched Into Eternity is a fascinating account of crime and public punishment in Scotland. From bloody Viking penalties to the execution of William Wallace, and from witch hunts and public drownings to the horrific execution in 1820 of three Scots Radicals whose crime was to campaign for a fairer deal for the downtrodden, this is an astonishing and macabre story. But it is perhaps less surprising when you consider that by 1800, judges had the authority to hand out the death penalty for more than 200 separate offences. Times have undoubtedly changed for the better, but the shadows of our history offer a fascinating insight into the brutality of life and the public punishments of the past. But if their deaths were cruel, Launched Into Eternity tells of women decried by jealous neighbours as witches being burned alive, publicly drowned, having ears and noses cut off and a vast range of other tragic cases where the justice of the time was delivered in the most brutal ways. The sheer scale of this can be seen in the fact that by 1800 Judges had authority to hand out the death penalty for more than 200 offences, some as trivial as poking about in a rabbit warren, stealing a shilling, begging, poaching, picking pockets, spending time with gipsies and stealing a horse, sheep or goat. Times have undoubtedly changed for the better, but the shadows of our past offer a fascinating insight into the brutality of life and the punishments of the past.

International Cultural Tourism: management, implications and cases provides a comprehensive exploration of the management, operations and marketing of cultural tourism attractions and resources in a global context. Topics explored include: * For the first time, an evaluation of the use and transformational impact of global media and new ICT in the management and marketing of cultural tourism attractions and resources. * The changing nature of the global cultural tourism marketplace (including demand, supply, product development and political changes). * Consumer behaviour, profiles and motivations of cultural tourists.* Environmental performance, management and wider issues of social and cultural sustainability. Written by a team of contributors from Australia, Hong Kong, UK, US, Canada, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa and Finland, this text provides a thoroughly global insight into the issues and techniques involved in the successful management and marketing of cultural attractions.* An overview of the way in which cultural tourism resources and attractions are managed and marketed in a global context. * Analysis of the demand, profiles and motivation of tourists * An investigation of the transformational and dynamic impacts of new technologies on cultural resources and products * International contributor team provide case studies from first-hand experience and research

Carstairs, the State Hospital in Lanarkshire, Scotland, is a hospital like no other. Effectively a prison for some of the most violent and insane criminals in our society, it houses men who have committed the most horrific and frightening crimes imaginable. And despite being an expensive, taxpayer-funded facility, the workings of Carstairs remain subject to intense state secrecy. In Carstairs: Hospital for Horrors, author David Leslie examines the history of the institution, the crimes that have led patients to be committed to the State Hospital and highlights the risks of the brave and dedicated staff who work there. This shocking account delves into the nightmarish minds of men who have killed, raped and attacked family members, lovers, children and innocent bystanders. For many patients, there is little hope of ever being released. But for others, including some considered to be amongst the most dangerous in society, release can become a reality. Corsairs features an exclusive, first-hand account of a bloody escape in 1976, when Robert Mone, along with Thomas McCulloch, escaped and went on the run. Three men died and now, for the very first time, Robert Mone gives his own account of an event which shocked the nation. And it is a telling insight into one of the most high-profile yet secretive institutions there is.

The environmental quality and popularity of any tourist destination is the outcome of sustained development, shaped by the socio-economic and physical dimensions of the local environment. Protecting the ‘living landscape’ requires recognizing, promoting and developing the links between economic, social and environmental objectives. This book therefore examines the tourism business in terms of ‘greening’ the local economy, people and environment, establishing the green agenda and investigating its application to the tourism sector.

The wartime double agent with a transmitter in his cell to contact suffragettes; the doctor hanged as he smiled to the farewells of lovers on the scaffold; the con who defied a gangland godfather and escaped the bromide in the prison tea; aristocrats and arsonists... The screws who guard Britain's prisons have seen them all. Stir! is the story of six of the country's most notorious jails - Durham, Wandsworth, Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, Dartmoor and Holloway - and of the men and women who entered their gates, sometimes stood on their scaffolds and occasionally vanished before their time. The book looks at early punishments, life on hell ships transporting convicts to far-off continents, the growth of prison populations, inmates sentenced to waste away on treadmills, the underworld giant who was birched, children starved and beaten for stealing, and even women forced to eat. Also investigated are the lives and thoughts of scores of inmates, from Oscar Wilde to Oswald Mosley; from Dr Crippen to Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged; from underworld legend Frankie Fraser to a Rolling Stone; and even the man who shot Martin Luther King, Jr. Just like Ronnie Barker's Porridge series, there are laughs too, as we uncover the man who measured bathwater, the prisoners punished for not wearing a collar and tie, the jail bookie who paid out in bread, and the unlucky brewers. The mix is all there in Stir!

When Manny McDonnell was twelve, he awoke to discover British troops surrounding his home in the toughest area of trouble-torn Belfast. Internment had begun and, encouraged by a fiercely Republican mother, he took to the streets with other school kids, throwing bricks, bottles and petrol bombs at soldiers. Jailed at fifteen for having IRA links, he became a unit commander leading deadly missions for the INLA before joining the IPLO, a group so vicious even the IRA ordered it to disband. But his decades of commitment to a free united Ireland turned to disillusion when bombs indiscriminately killed two little boys in mainland Britain. It was a wake-up call and, sickened by the way events were unfolding, McDonnell distanced himself from the Troubles and began to spend more time in Scotland with major gangland players Paul Ferris and Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw. Friendly with both, he then faced difficult choices when the two fell out and became bitter rivals and sworn enemies. Lighting Candles is an astonishing and horrifying exposé of one man's journey through the blood, bombs and bullets of the paramilitaries to the criminal activities of drug-smuggling gangsters. It is also a story of how, no matter what has gone before, it's possible to put the past behind you and begin again.

Convicted murderer Billy Ferris has endured more than three decades behind bars in many of Britain's prisons. In The Hate Factory, he candidly documents his experiences in jail with some of the UK's most notorious criminals. Jailed for life in 1977 for a crime of passion, Ferris experienced betrayal and treachery on the inside. He unexpectedly formed friendships that led to his being labelled a 'bombers' crony' and found love while on the run after a dramatic escape. He vividly describes the cruelty, savagery and degradation that go hand in hand with prison life and details the nightmare that was Wormwood Scrubs, the prison he christened 'the Hate Factory'. He relays what happened when his cell was used as a courtroom for an IRA punishment trial and how he hatched a plan to assassinate the son of a legendary underworld godfather and plotted to murder an informer. Over the 30 years during which Ferris has been imprisoned, his fellow inmates have included some of the UK's 'most wanted' from London underworld enforcer 'Mad' Frankie Fraser to Archie Hall, the serial killer dubbed 'the Monster Butler'.