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London Transport Buses in the 1960s: A Decade of Change and Transition
by Jim BlakeJust as life in Britain generally changed dramatically during the 1960s, so did London Transport's buses and their operations. Most striking was the abandonment of London's trolleybuses, once the world's biggest system, and their replacement by motorbuses. Begun in 1959 using surplus RT-types, it was completed by May 1962 using new Routemasters, designed specifically to replace them. They then continued to replace RT types, too. Traffic congestion and staff shortages played havoc with London Transport's buses and Green Line coaches during the 1960s, one-man operation was seen as a remedy for the latter, shortening routes in the Central Area for the former. Thus the ill-fated "Reshaping Plan" was born, introducing new O.M.O. bus types. These entered trial service in 1965, and after much delay the plan was implemented from September 1968 onwards. Sadly, new MB-types, also introduced in the Country Area, soon proved a disaster! Unfortunately, owing to a government diktat, Routemaster production ended at the start of 1968, forcing LT to buy "off-the-peg" vehicles unsuited to London operation and their in-house overhaul procedures. The decade ended with the loss of LT's Country Area buses and Green Line coaches to the National Bus Company. Photographer Jim Blake began photographing London's buses towards the end of the trolleybus conversion program in 1961 and continued dealing with the changing scene throughout the decade. He dealt very thoroughly with the "Reshaping" changes, and many of the photographs featured herein show rare and unusual scenes which have never been published before.
London Transport's Last Buses: Leyland Olympian L1-263
by Matthew WharmbyThe Olympian was Leyland's answer to the competition that was threatening to take custom away from its second-generation OMO double-deck products. Simpler than the London Transportcentric Titan but, unlike that integral model, able to respond to the market by being offered as a chassis for bodying by the bodybuilder of the customer's choice, the Olympian was an immediate success and soon replaced both the Atlantean and Bristol VRT as the standard double-decker of the NBC. It wasn't until 1984 that London Transport itself dabbled with the model, taking three for evaluation alongside trios of contemporary double-deckers.The resulting L class spawned an order for 260 more in 1986, featuring accessibility advancements developed by LT in concert with the Ogle design consultancy, but the rapid changes engulfing the organisation meant that no more were ordered. During the 1990s company ownerships shifted repeatedly as the ethos of competition gave way to the cold reality of big business, an unstable situation which even saw London's bus operations broken up.The L class was split between three new companies, but the backlog of older vehicles to replace once corporate interests released funding ensured the buses up to a further decade in service. Finally, as low-floor buses swept into the capital at the turn of the century, Olympian operation at last declined, and the final examples operated early in 2006.This profusely illustrated book describes the diversity of liveries, ownerships and deployments that characterised the London Leyland Olympians' two decades of service.
London Triptych
by Jonathan Kemp"London itself is as powerful a presence here as the three gay men whose lives it absorbs."?The Times Literary Supplement"Vivid and visceral, London Triptych cuts deep to reveal the hidden layers of a secret history."?Jake Arnott, author of The Long FirmRent boys, aristocrats, artists, and criminals populate this sweeping novel in which author Jonathan Kemp skillfully interweaves the lives and loves of three very different men in gay London across the decades.In the 1890s, a young man named Jack apprentices as a rent boy and discovers a life of pleasure and excess that leads to new friendships, most notably with the soon-to-be-infamous Oscar Wilde. A century later in 1998, David tells his own tale of unashamed decadence from prison, recalling life as a young man arriving in the city in the mid-'80s just as the scourge of AIDS hit. Where their paths cross, in the politically sensitive 1950s, when gay men were the target of police and politicians alike, the artist Colin tentatively explores his sexuality while working on his painting "London Triptych."Moodily atmospheric and rich with history, London Triptych is a sexy, resplendent portrait of the politics and pleasures of queer life in one of the world's most fascinating cities.Jonathan Kemp lives in London, where he currently teaches creative writing at Birkbeck College. London Triptych, his first novel, was published in the United Kingdom in 2010 and won the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award.
London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets
by Peter AckroydLondon Under is a wonderful, atmospheric, imaginative, oozing short study of everything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, and modern tube stations. The depths below are hot, warmer than the surface, and this book tunnels down through the geological layers, meeting the creatures, real and fictional, that dwell in darkness--rats and eels, monsters and ghosts. When the Underground's Metropolitan Line was opened in 1864, the guards asked for permission to grow beards to protect themselves against the sulfurous fumes, and named their engines after tyrants--Czar, Kaiser, Mogul--and even Pluto, god of the underworld. To go under London is to penetrate history, to enter a hidden world. As Ackroyd puts it, "The vastness of the space, a second earth, elicits sensations of wonder and of terror. It partakes of myth and dream in equal measure."From the Hardcover edition.
London Underground Serial Killer: The Life Of Kieran Kelly
by Geoff PlattThe full story of the life and times of Kieran Patrick Kelly, the London Underground Serial Killer, who wandered up and down the Northern Line of the London Underground between 1960 and 1983, pushing innocent people that he had never met under trains, and who finished up killing over thirty people. The book provides a full biography of Kelly, discussing the details of his crimes, his victims and his ability to evade justice; he managed to secure mistrials or acquittals in twenty-five trials before being eventually convicted and sentenced to die to prison, which he did in Durham, in 2001. It could be argued that Kelly is the most investigated serial killer in the history of the world. His murders were investigated as they occurred between 1953 and 1983; they were reinvestigated in 1983 and again in 2015. The author of this book played major roles in the two latter inquiries, conducting the entire inquiry in 1983 and acting as a consultant to the 2015 inquiry. More is known about Kelly than any other serial killer in history. He was arrested before he had finished killing, then murdered his cellmate in the police station and was interviewed by the author ten minutes after this final murder, before spending the next two years discussing his crimes and his motivations with the author. The end result is a truly unique insight into the mind of a serial killer!
London Voices, 1820–1840: Vocal Performers, Practices, Histories
by Susan Rutherford Roger ParkerLondon, 1820. The British capital is a metropolis that overwhelms dwellers and visitors alike with constant exposure to all kinds of sensory stimulation. Over the next two decades, the city’s tumult will reach new heights: as population expansion places different classes in dangerous proximity and ideas of political and social reform linger in the air, London begins to undergo enormous infrastructure change that will alter it forever. It is the London of this period that editors Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford pinpoint in this book, which chooses one broad musical category—voice—and engages with it through essays on music of the streets, theaters, opera houses, and concert halls; on the raising of voices in religious and sociopolitical contexts; and on the perception of voice in literary works and scientific experiments with acoustics. Emphasizing human subjects, this focus on voice allows the authors to explore the multifaceted issues that shaped London, from the anxiety surrounding the city’s importance in the musical world at large to the changing vocal imaginations that permeated the epoch. Capturing the breadth of sonic stimulations and cultures available—and sometimes unavoidable—to residents at the time, London Voices, 1820–1840 sheds new light on music in Britain and the richness of London culture during this period.
London Walks: London Stories
by David TuckerLondon Walks is the award-winning original walking tour company. Written by the expert and knowledgeable guides who lead the walks, London Stories is the perfect way to discover the rich history of London and its hidden gems, including:Sinister London - haunted London and Jack the Ripper.Literary London - from Shakespeare to Dickens.Public Houses - the old pubs of Soho. Mystery and Secrets - the city's hidden past.A Tale of Two Cities - Westminster and the Square Mile.Perfect for tourists who want to experience London life beyond Trafalgar Square as well as for Londoners keen to step off the Circle Line and discover the secrets on their own doorstep, London Stories offers a fascinating glimpse into the capital's rich history. With photos, maps and illustrations to bring the stories to life, London Stories is for those who love London, written by those who know it best.
London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930–1950: Selected Works of Katie Brown, A. M. Kaizer, and I. A. Lisky
by Katie Brown I. A. Lisky A. M. KaizerIn London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930–1950, Vivi Lachs presents a selection of previously un-translated short stories and sketches by Katie Brown, A. M. Kaizer, and I. A. Lisky, for the general reader and academic alike. These intriguing and entertaining tales build a picture of a lively East-End community of the 30s and 40s struggling with political, religious, and community concerns. Lachs includes a new history of the Yiddish literary milieu and biographies of the writers, with information gleaned from articles, reviews, and obituaries published in London’s Yiddish daily newspapers and periodicals. Lisky’s impassioned stories concern the East End’s clashing ideologies of communism, Zionism, fascism, and Jewish class difference. He shows anti-fascist activism, political debate in a kosher café, East-End extras on a film set, and a hunger march by the unemployed. Kaizer’s witty and satirical tales explore philanthropy, upward mobility, synagogue politics, and competition between Zionist organizations. They expose the character and foibles of the community and make fun of foolish and hypocritical behavior. Brown’s often hilarious sketches address episodes of daily life, which highlight family shenanigans and generational misunderstandings, and point out how the different attachments to Jewish identity of the immigrant generation and their children created unresolvable fractures. Each section begins with a biography of the writer, before launching into the translated stories with contextual notes. London Yiddishtown offers a significant addition to the literature about London, about the East End, about Jewish history, and about Yiddish. The East End has parallels with New York’s Lower East Side, yet London’s comparatively small enclave, and the particular experience of London in the 1930s and the bombing of the East End during the Blitz make this history unique. It is a captivating read that will entice literary and history buffs of all backgrounds. A Yiddish Book Center Translation.
London and Paris Through Indian Spectacles
by G. Paramaswaran Pillai Usha SahanaThe book is structured in the form of a series of sketches, usually about people, and it is here that Piliai's powers of observation and human sympathy are most evident. Whether it is his landlady, a policeman, a bus driver, or a waiter, Pillai makes the individual as well as the institution come alive. There is also a wealth of sociological and historical detail which emerges from the travelogue.
London and its Asylums, 1888-1914: Politics and Madness (Mental Health in Historical Perspective)
by Robert EllisThis book explores the impact that politics had on the management of mental health care at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 1888 and the introduction of the Local Government Act marked a turning point in which democratically elected bodies became responsible for the management of madness for the first time. With its focus on London in the period leading up to the First World War, it offers a new way to look at institutions and to consider their connections to wider issues that were facing the capital and the nation. The chapters that follow place London at the heart of international networks and debates relating to finance, welfare, architecture, scientific and medical initiatives, and the developing responses to immigrant populations. Overall, it shines a light on the relationships between mental health policies and other ideological priorities.
London and the Cit
by Jade SinwellIn Regency London, where proper behavior is de rigueur, Sir Rudoph Shaw anything but proper. Born to wealthy parents, he loses everything after his father dies when he is only fourteen years old and, now going by plain Rudy Shaw, he is forced to make his own way on the cruel streets of London.But Rudy’s fortunes are changing. He runs into a childhood friend who pulls him back into the world of the rich and powerful, giving Rudy a second chance at the life he should have had. That is, if Rudy can keep his darkest secrets hidden from the world -- first, that he is only a lowly destitute laborer who has sold his body in the past to put food in his belly and, even more devastating if it is revealed, he prefers men in his bed.Upon Rudy’s debut back into the shining world of well-off Londoners, he learns the man whom he has been having a year-long affair with is none other than the affianced husband to his friend’s cousin. If this secret gets out, Rudy will be ruined for sure. Can the two men stay away from each other? Or will their passion and love destroy them both?
London and the Georgian Navy
by Philip MacDougall Philip MacdougallAt a time when the Royal Navy was the biggest and best in the world, Georgian London was the hub of this immense industrial-military complex, underpinning and securing a global trading empire that was entirely dependent on the navy for its existence. Philip MacDougall explores the bureaucratic web that operated within the wider city area before giving attention to London’s association with the practical aspects of supplying and manning the operational fleet and shipbuilding, repair and maintenance. His supremely detailed geographical exploration of these areas includes a discussion of captivating key personalities, buildings and work. The book examines significant locations as well as the importance of Londoners in the manning of ships and how the city memorialised the navy and its personnel during times of victory. An in-depth gazetteer and walking guide complete this fascinating study of Britain, her capital and her Royal Navy.
London and the Making of Provincial Literature: Aesthetics and the Transatlantic Book Trade, 1800-1850 (Material Texts)
by Joseph RezekIn the early nineteenth century, London publishers dominated the transatlantic book trade. No one felt this more keenly than authors from Ireland, Scotland, and the United States who struggled to establish their own national literary traditions while publishing in the English metropolis. Authors such as Maria Edgeworth, Sydney Owenson, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper devised a range of strategies to transcend the national rivalries of the literary field. By writing prefaces and footnotes addressed to a foreign audience, revising texts specifically for London markets, and celebrating national particularity, provincial authors appealed to English readers with idealistic stories of cross-cultural communion. From within the messy and uneven marketplace for books, Joseph Rezek argues, provincial authors sought to exalt and purify literary exchange. In so doing, they helped shape the Romantic-era belief that literature inhabits an autonomous sphere in society.London and the Making of Provincial Literature tells an ambitious story about the mutual entanglement of the history of books and the history of aesthetics in the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Situated between local literary scenes and a distant cultural capital, enterprising provincial authors and publishers worked to maximize success in London and to burnish their reputations and build their industry at home. Examining the production of books and the circulation of material texts between London and the provincial centers of Dublin, Edinburgh, and Philadelphia, Rezek claims that the publishing vortex of London inspired a dynamic array of economic and aesthetic practices that shaped an era in literary history.
London and the Restoration, 1659-1683
by Gary S. De KreyArticulate and restless London citizens were at the heart of political and religious confrontation in England from the Interregnum through the great crisis of Church and state that marked the last years of Charles II's reign. The same Reformed Protestant citizens who took the lead in toppling in toppling the Rump in 1659–60 took the lead in demanding a new Protestant settlement after 1678. In the interval, their demands for liberty of conscience challenged the Anglican order, whilst their arguments about consensual government in the city challenged loyalist political assumptions. Dissenting and Anglican identities developed in specific locales within the city, rooting the Whig and Tory parties of 1679–83 in neighbourhoods with different traditions and cultures. London and the Restoration integrates the history of the kingdom with that of its premier locality in the era of Dryden and Locke, analysing the ideas and the movements that unsettled the Restoration regime.
London and the Seventeenth Century: The Making of the World's Greatest City
by Margarette LincolnThe first comprehensive history of seventeenth-century London, told through the lives of those who experienced it The Gunpowder Plot, the Civil Wars, Charles I&’s execution, the Plague, the Great Fire, the Restoration, and then the Glorious Revolution: the seventeenth century was one of the most momentous times in the history of Britain, and Londoners took center stage. In this fascinating account, Margarette Lincoln charts the impact of national events on an ever-growing citizenry with its love of pageantry, spectacle, and enterprise. Lincoln looks at how religious, political, and financial tensions were fomented by commercial ambition, expansion, and hardship. In addition to events at court and parliament, she evokes the remarkable figures of the period, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Pepys, and Newton, and draws on diaries, letters, and wills to trace the untold stories of ordinary Londoners. Through their eyes, we see how the nation emerged from a turbulent century poised to become a great maritime power with London at its heart—the greatest city of its time.
London at War, 1939-1945
by Philip ZieglerIn 1939, London was not merely the greatest city in the world, it was the most tempting and vulnerable target for aerial attack. For six years it was in the front line of the free world’s battle against Fascism. It endured the horrors of the blitz of 1940 and 1941, the V1s, the V2s. Other cities suffered more intensely; no other city was so consistently under attack for so long a time. This is the story of London at war from 1939 to 1945, or perhaps of Londoners at war--for Philip Ziegler, best known as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome, yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing, retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always standing up to the authorities; the odiously snobbish middle-class woman from Kensington, sneering at the 'scum' who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham; the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war every bit as much as it was Churchill’s or the King’s, and this is their story. Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a dazzling portrait of an entire population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record, in story after story, of astonishing patience, dignity and humour. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'
London at War: 1939-1945 A Nation's Capital Survives
by Alan JeffreysLondon was a city on the front line in the Second World War. It suffered hits from nearly 12,000 tons of bombs, with nearly 30,000 civilians killed by enemy action. The Blitz changed the landscape of the city. Many famous landmarks were hit, including Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London - even the Imperial War Museum. Some areas, such as Stepney, were so badly damaged that they had to be almost entirely rebuilt after the war. But it wasn't just the city's physical landscape that was transformed. With the arrival of large numbers of Commonwealth and overseas service personnel, London became much more cosmopolitan. After 1942, vast numbers of American servicemen were deployed in the capital, and it was also a busy transport hub and a popular destination for troops on leave.This audiobook tells the story of these momentous years in London's history through IWM's unique collections. Using personal accounts from letters and diaries, objects and documents it gives an up-close and revealing insight into those turbulent years in the capital, experienced by those who lived there.(P)2021 Headline Publishing Group Limited
London at War: Relics of the Home Front from the World Wars
by Alan BrooksAn extensively illustrated tour of relics and reminders of the city&’s WWI and WWII experiences. The two world wars of the twentieth century seem so distant from us now, yet in London the evidence of these conflicts can be found in the many relics and reminders that are scattered across the fabric of the modern city. And, as Alan Brooks demonstrates in this fascinating photographic record, they can be seen and visited today. Plaques and inscriptions, graves, cemeteries and rolls of honor, stone monuments and stained glass, war-damaged buildings, pillboxes, and air-raid shelters, painted signs and camouflage—these are just some of the mementos of war, and of the experience of Londoners during the greatest conflicts the country has known.
London in the Rain
by Ellie ThomasA life of set routine is the norm for Raymond Smith. Now in his mid-thirties, a fleeting wartime romance far behind him, he is an exemplary clerk at a London insurance firm where he’s perceived as dry and conventional.But Raymond has a secret. Every month or so, he visits Charlie’s, one of the more understated bars in Soho's flowering gay scene in the 1930s. There, he seeks relief with strangers to get him through the next few weeks.On one of these visits, he encounters suave David Carstairs, a well-travelled linguist with the Foreign Office. Rather than a brief encounter, David offers him friendship and even affection. Despite Raymond’s misgivings, the two men, with their contrasting backgrounds and experiences, start to form a bond in the spring of 1936 as Europe inexorably begins to march towards war.Will Raymond fearfully reject this chance of happiness? Or can he unbend enough to allow David into his heart and life?
London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People
by Jerry WhiteJerry White's London in the Twentieth Century, Winner of the Wolfson Prize, is a masterful account of the city’s most tumultuous century by its leading expert.In 1901 no other city matched London in size, wealth and grandeur. Yet it was also a city where poverty and disease were rife. For its inhabitants, such contradictions and diversity were the defining experience of the next century of dazzling change.In the worlds of work and popular culture, politics and crime, through war, immigration and sexual revolution, Jerry White’s richly detailed and captivating history shows how the city shaped their lives and how it in turn was shaped by them.
London to Ladysmith & Ian Hamilton's March
by Winston ChurchillIn addition to his enduring fame as a statesman, Winston Churchill was a Nobel Prize-winning author whose military histories offer the unique perspective of a participant in world affairs. London to Ladysmith and Ian Hamilton's March reflect his early career as a Boer War correspondent for London's Morning Post in 1899 and 1900. London to Ladysmith chronicles the Boer War's first five months, from the author's arrival in South Africa to his capture during a Boer ambush of an armored train. Churchill's gripping narrative of his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp traces a grueling journey across enemy territory and back to British lines. Ian Hamilton's March picks up the action immediately afterward, documenting the eponymous general's 400-mile advance from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The march saw ten major battles and numerous skirmishes, culminating in the release of prisoners from the camp where Churchill himself was held. Written mostly in the field, this book offers a vivid, personal account of the conditions under which the Boer War was fought, as well as a fascinating look at the formative years of one of the twentieth century's preeminent leaders.
London's 100 Strangest Places: London's 100 Strangest Places
by David LongThe bustling metropolis of London is home to scores of unusual and unique places and spaces. In this feast of peculiarities, author David Long guides you off the beaten path and allows you under the skin of the hidden city that is modern-day London, revealing a new side to the capital you thought you knew.
London's Airports: Useful Information on Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and City
by Martin W. Bowman Graham M. SimonsThis book is for the passengers and aviation buffs who use Londons main airports. It includes a brief history, plans and photographs for each of the five airports, together with directions and information about gates, security, passport control, shopping, restaurants, car parks and other transport connections. Details of Air Traffic Control in London airspace is explained with the inclusion of aerial photographs taken during approach to landing so passengers may locate places of interest whilst flying.
London's Aylesbury Estate: An Oral History of the 'Concrete Jungle' (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)
by Michael RomynThis book looks beyond the Aylesbury’s public face by examining its rise and fall from the perspective of those who knew it, based largely on the oral testimony and memoir of residents and former residents, youth and community workers, borough Councillors, officials, police officers and architects. What emerges is not a simple story of definitive failures, but one of texture and complexity, struggle and accord, family and friends, and of rapidly changing circumstances. The study spans the years 1967 to 2010 – from the estate’s ambitious inception until the first of its blocks were pulled down. It is a period rarely dealt with by historians of council housing, who have typically confined themselves to the years before or after the 1979 watershed. As such, it demonstrates how shifts in housing policy, and broader political, economic and social developments, came to bear on a working-class community – for good and, more especially, for ill.