Railway history – creative non fiction
Great Central Reborn by Mark Beckett
Railway professional Mark Beckett, former Development Director of Chiltern Railways, creates a fictional scenario about the Great Central Railway, and what might have been.
Suppose Lord Beeching’s cuts had taken a different turn and the Great Central Main Line had not been closed? Railway history in England would have run a different course, with major benefits for the towns of Rugby, Leicester and Nottingham and a different shape to the railway network we see in England today.
Illustrated with photographs and imagined timetables, Mark’s large format hardback book Great Central Reborn: What if the Great Central Main Line had not been closed? was development edited and designed by Rachel Beckett and published by Stuchbury Editions. This creative non fiction work will appeal to anyone with an interest in England’s railway history.
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First World War history
Gloucestershire Between the Wars: A Memoir by A S Bullock
Gloucestershire Between the Wars: A Memoir charts the life and adventures of a working-class Gloucestershire man, Arthur Bullock (1899-1988), who benefited from a grammar school education at Sir Thomas Rich’s School, Gloucester, and went on to serve in the trenches.
Arthur’s memories of a Forest of Dean childhood and his school days are succeeded by extraordinary and insightful recollections of serving in the front line First World War. Much of this book’s fascination comes from its being a primary source for understanding life in the Front Line, and its contribution to the body of literature on World War I history (so its title is something of a misnomer).
Arthur goes on to recount his strange and rivetting experiences while seeking work in South Wales, training as an engineer in Birmingham during the Great Depression, then gaining employment with the well known Gloucestershire firm R A Lister and Co. (Lister’s) and settling in Dursley and later Stroud, and finally running an engineering firm at Brimscombe Port, in the very building now occupied by the publishers of this book, which has so many fascinating insights into Gloucestershire history.
The memoir was development edited by Rachel Beckett, then taken to production and publication in paperback by the History Press [opens in new tab].
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