Tom Quinn

A fascinating collection of bizarre but true stories from nearly 200 years of railway history. Right from the very start, when George Stephenson’s famous Rocket knocked over and killed a government minister at the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester line in 1830, the world’s railways have given rise to plenty of intriguing stories. In this fascinating book, revised and updated with a new selection of tales, railway buff Tom Quinn explores the more bizarre side of train travel, featuring weird weather conditions, audacious robberies, hair-raising accidents, vanishing passengers, an infestation of maggots and a mysterious missing mummy. From the dawn of rail travel, when speeds of 15mph were considered dangerous to health and people mistook engines for fire-breathing demons, through the Victorian heyday of royal trains and seaside specials to today’s more prosaic leaves on the line, this whistlestop tour through railways’ long and storied history is the perfect gift for armchair travellers, history fans and trainspotters. Word count: 60,000

More extraordinary but true stories from London’s history. In this fascinating follow-up to his bestselling London’s Strangest Tales, Tom Quinn makes a further foray into the weirder side of the capital, bringing us a splendiforous collection of bizarre-but-true stories that explore a thousand years of London’s history. Discover the ghosts that stalk West End theatres, the mysterious mummy who lives in a City church cupboard, and secret tunnels under the Thames. Find out why there’s a TARDIS at Earl’s Court, why frogs once rained from the skies, and why the mulberry tree in the gardens at Buckingham Palace isn’t quite what it was supposed to be. A dip-in-and-outable treasure trove of London lore, London’s Truly Strangest Tales is both an ideal gift for dyed-in-the-wool Londoners who want to find out more about the great city they live in, and the perfect souvenir for people just passing through. Word count: 58,000

Extraordinary but true stories from over two hundred years of angling history. Fishing's Strangest Tales gathers together choice stories and bizarre fishing tales from all over the world. Consider the Oxford scientist who in 1910 discovered the marvellous life-giving properties of brandy to fish who had otherwise gasped their last. Or how about the nine-year-old boy fishing for trout who caught a large mussel – containing no less than forty pearls – and managed to earn more in one day than his father, a farm worker, had earned in the last five years? Fishing's Strangest Days is full of fascinating tales that may sound fishy and unbelievable but will have have you caught hook, line and sinker.

From humble beginnings as a shopkeeper's son in Coventry to 'Page of the Backstairs' at Clarence House, William Tallon, or 'Backstairs Billy' as he came to be known, always knew he was destined for a life in the royal circle. As as a small boy Billy was fascinated by this glamorous world of pageantry and excess. Charming, loyal, promiscuous and in possession of a truly wicked sense of humour, Billy entered royal service at the age of fifteen and, over the next fifty years, became one of the most notorious figures, and most remarkable characters, ever to have graced the royal household. Although a servant, over time Billy became one of the late Queen Mother's most trusted friends and confidants. While others came and went, Billy was the one servant the Queen Mother just could not do without. She adored him, and he her, perhaps because of his high camp style or his witty and provocative remarks about the well-born equerries, royal press people and advisers. Sometimes scandalous, often shocking, always entertaining, Backstairs Billy is the fascinating life story of the man who spent more than half a century working for one of the world's most elusive institutions, giving us a rare glimpse of what life in the British royal family is really like.

A quirky collection of stories from London's stranger side, featuring a tiny prison cell in Trafalgar Square, a train disguised as a ship, and a church that's completely the wrong way round. London’s Strangest Tales takes a walk on London’s weirder side with an absorbing collection of curious tales from one of the world’s greatest cities. This fascinating book is packed with amazing things you didn’t know about Britain’s capital, like the fact that it’s still forbidden to run, carry an umbrella or whistle in the Burlington Arcade, and the fat lamppost at the corner of Trafalgar Square that is secretly a tiny prison cell. And did you know that the entrance to Buckingham Palace you see from the Mall is actually the back door and not the front? The stories within these pages are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious and, most importantly, true. Revised, redesigned and updated for a new generation of London-lovers, this book is a brilliant alternative guide to the city, whether you’re a visitor, a daily commuter or one of its 8 million inhabitants. Word count: 45,000

'Shiveringly good suspense!' Lisa GardnerTHE FIFTH BOOK IN A GRIPPING SERIES FROM 30 MILLION COPY SELLING AUTHOR. One by one he'll stalk them, then he'll squeeze the trigger, savouring the way each lifeless body crumples to the reddening snow. One down already. And then there were five... Sheriff Dan Grayson lies near death and the police department of Grizzly Falls, Montana, is in shock. Then a prominent judge's body is found. Detectives Regan Pescoli and Selena Alvarez head up the search for the killer, but they don't realize how personal and dangerous the case is going to be. Headstrong and eager for justice, Pescoli tracks the scant clues straight to a monster who has had her and Alvarez in his sights all along . . .'She is one of the best' Harlan CobenTHE NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES, DESERVES TO DIE, IS AVAILABLE NOW

Kathleen Clifford was born in 1909. Her family lived in a tiny flat near Paddington Station and her earliest memories were of the smell of horses and the shrill whistle of steam trains. For a girl from the slums there was really only one option once school was over - a life in service. She started work in 1925 as a lowly kitchen maid in the London home of Lady Diana Spencer's family. Here she heard tales of the Earl's propensity for setting fire to himself, as well as enjoying the servants' gossip about who was sleeping with whom. The Spencers were just the first in a line of eccentric families for whom she worked during a career that lasted more than thirty years and took her from a London palace to remote medieval estates. But despite long hours, amorous butlers and mad employers, Kathleen always kept her sense of humour and knew how to have fun. On one occasion she was almost caught in bed with her boyfriend who had to jump out of the window and run down the drive in his underwear to escape the local bobby.

During more than thirty years in a variety of houses, Bob Sharpe managed to rise from garden boy to valet and butler. As a boy he had to kill pheasant chicks, boil rabbits for the estate dogs, carry the wood up and down stairs every day for thirty fires and sleep on the floor outside his master's room. He cleaned shoes, ironed underwear and socks and once had to stand all night in the hall waiting for a late visitor to arrive. But as a butler he was the best paid servant in the house, waited on, feared and respected by the other servants. Bob Sharpe knew the real world of upstairs downstairs and the secrets of the landed gentry - even to the point of incest and attempted murder! They Also Serve shows you life below stairs as it really was and is perfect for fans of Downton Abbey and nostalgia memoirs.

Nancy Jackman was born in 1907 in a remote Norfolk village. Her father was a ploughman, her mother a former servant who struggled to make ends meet in a cottage so small that access to the single upstairs room was via a ladder. The pace of life in that long-vanished world was dictated by the slow, heavy tread of the farm horse and though Nancy's earliest memories were of a green, sunny countryside still unspoiled by the motorcar, she also knew at first hand the harshness of a world where the elderly were forced to break stones on the roads and where school children were regularly beaten. Nancy left school at the age of twelve to work for a local farmer who forced her to stand in the rain when she made a mistake, physically abused her and eventually tried to rape her. Nancy continued to work as a cook until the 1950s, sustained by her determination to escape and find a life of her own. The Cook's Tale shows you life below stairs as it really was and is perfect for fans of Downton Abbey. Part of the Lives of Servants series. Other titles in the series are: The Maid's Tale, They Also Serve and Cocoa at Midnight.

Travel from the rugged beaches of Cornwall to the ancient burial sites of the Orkney Islands, and in between encounter an enticing mix of wild hills and spectacular coastlines, ancient castles and stately homes, tiny churches and magnificent abbeys, wide estuaries and hidden valleys, and many other little-known gems that add to the breath-taking landscapes and buildings that make up the heritage of England, Wales and Scotland. Each chapter in the book, which is now made available again in paperback, is accompanied by a lively commentary by Tom Quinn, a full-colour map, and Chris Coe's beautiful photography, which captures the unique character of each site. Suggestions for places to stay and nearby attractions are also included.

Born in 1910, Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum; she knew at first hand a soot-blackened world, lit by candles and oil lamps, where you slept in your clothes - if you hadn't already been sewn into them for the winter - and fought an unending battle with hunger and bed bugs. At its best, life was lived on the bustling, noisy streets where fish sellers jostled with hurdy-gurdy men, organ grinders and street fighters, where children dodged between the wheels of horse-drawn carts and where money could still be made by mudlarks and the rag and bone man. At the age of fifteen, Rose left the noise and squalor of Hoxton and 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 and 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 and 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 and even physical abuse. But however difficult life became, Rose found something to laugh about, and her remarkable spirit and gift for friendship shines through in her memories of a now-vanished world. This is upstairs downstairs as it really was.