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  Guy Gibson: The Life and Legacy...

  Editors Charles River

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  Given the RAF’s importance, it should come as no surprise that some of the pilots ranked among Britain’s most recognized war heroes, and Guy Gibson remains one of the most famous and highly decorated British soldiers in World War II. His exploits in the RAF as the leader of the audacious raid to blow up German dams in May 1943 remain renowned, and for generations of British boys after the war, he served as the benchmark of a legendary hero. His tragic death at the young age of 26 only served to deepen his mythology, but his war record was impressive even before his most famous missions, with three operational tours of duty under his belt. 
  The mythmaking aside, Gibson was a complex and controversial character, probably caused, in part, by a turbulent and disrupted upbringing. Although his bravery, self-sacrifice, and leadership in battle were undeniable and highly impressive, he could be demanding and difficult to get along with. It is probably fair to say he was not universally loved by the crews and service personnel who served alongside him, and he after the Dam Busters raid, he embarked on a months-long tour of the United States and Canada that many (including Air Officer Commanding Bomber Commander Arthur “Bomber” Harris) felt had gone to his head slightly. After the raid and the fame, he drifted somewhat, having been forbidden from flying in further operations (which he bypassed in the end). He wrote a book about his exploits as a bomber pilot, Enemy Coast Ahead, and was interviewed on radio programs. He flirted with politics, applying for and succeeding in becoming the Conservative Party’s prospective candidate for Macclesfield in 1944 before withdrawing, claiming the war still required his attention. After D-Day on June 6, 1944, Gibson seemed to feel an urgent need to get back into operations for fear of missing out.

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  Margaret Thatcher - The Iron Lady

  50 50minutes

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  Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the life of Margaret Thatcher in next to no time with this concise guide.50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of Margaret Thatcher. In the 1970s, the United Kingdom was struggling economically in comparison with its stronger European counterparts. Thatcher, the country's first female Prime Minister, recognised the need for drastic economic reform, despite its potential to cause social upheaval. Known for her inflexible and unemotional stance in the face of strikes, the deaths of IRA prisoners, a violent war in the Falklands and even a narrow escape from a bomb in her bedroom, Thatcher remains a divisive figure in politics.In just 50 minutes you will: • Learn about the background of the United Kingdom's famous first female Prime Minister, the Iron Lady • Gain a deeper understanding of Thatcherism, the collective name for Thatcher's economic and social reform policies • Discover the measures taken by Thatcher during her time in power in both domestic and foreign policyABOUT 50MINUTES.COM|History & Culture50MINUTES.COM will enable you to quickly understand the main events, people, conflicts and discoveries from world history that have shaped the world we live in today. Our publications present the key information on a wide variety of topics in a quick and accessible way that is guaranteed to save you time on your journey of discovery.

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  Smugglers' Times: - Smuggling In...

  M. Dennis Taylor

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  Life, With A History Of Smuggling. 
  ISLAMORADA, Florida, With Keys Don -- "Marijuana is a people business," explained Don, a long-retired pioneer of the marijuana smuggling industry, who flew single-engine planes back and forth to Colombia, carrying up to a million dollars-worth of pot per load, in today's money. 
  He brought marijuana through the Florida Keys, an area with thousands of places to hide, that's been a haven for smugglers since the times of the Spanish Main up until sometime late last night. Later he and his friends used boats and vehicles and expanded connections throughout the states, Mexico and the Philippines, even working with Federal Agents. 
  "I'll tell you about the life of a smuggler," said Don. "When marijuana is legal, we will be like the rum runners during prohibition and people might be interested in how it was in Smugglers' Times.

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  Heretics

  G. K. Chesterton

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  Heretics by G. K. Chesterton is a thought-provoking collection of essays that critiques the intellectual and cultural trends of his time. Chesterton challenges the prevailing ideologies of modernity, targeting thinkers and movements he views as undermining tradition, faith, and common sense. With sharp wit and eloquence, he defends the necessity of orthodoxy—not as rigid dogma, but as a foundation for truth and sanity in an increasingly skeptical world. Chesterton argues that rejecting universal truths leads to fragmented philosophies and moral relativism, leaving humanity adrift. Through his characteristic blend of humor, paradox, and profound insight, he calls for a return to enduring values rooted in Christianity. Heretics is both a defense of belief and a celebration of the imaginative vitality that faith inspires, making it a timeless critique of doubt and a call to embrace meaning in a chaotic age.

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  Browdean Farm - From their pens...

  A M Burrage

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  Alfred McLelland Burrage was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex on 1st July, 1889. His father and uncle were both writers, primarily of boy’s fiction, and by age 16 AM Burrage had joined them.  The young man had ambitions to write for the adult market too.  The money was better and so was his writing. 
  From 1890 to 1914, prior to the mainstream appeal of cinema and radio the printed word, mainly in magazines, was the foremost mass entertainment.  AM Burrage quickly became a master of the market publishing his stories regularly across a number of publications. 
  By the start of the Great War Burrage was well established but in 1916 he was conscripted to fight on the Western Front. He continued to write during these years documenting his experiences in the classic book War is War by Ex-Private X. 
  For the remainder of his life Burrage was rarely printed in book form but continued to write and be published on a prodigious scale in magazines and newspapers.  In this volume we concentrate on his supernatural stories which are, by common consent, some of the best ever written.  Succinct yet full of character each reveals a twist and a flavour that is unsettling…..sometimes menacing….always disturbing.

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  The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker

  Mark Beaver

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  On a June night in 1983, twenty-three-year-old Karla Faye Tucker and her boyfriend, fueled by a sinister cocktail of illicit drugs, broke into a Houston apartment. "We were very wired," Tucker later testified, "and we was looking for something to do." Though they later claimed they entered the premises with no murderous intent, they ended up slaughtering two people—one a sworn enemy, the other an utter stranger. The weapon: a pickax they found in the apartment.
  
  Fourteen years later, in early 1998, Tucker was facing lethal injection. But after her religious conversion in prison, Texas would be executing a different woman than the one who'd committed the murders. Her change was so dramatic that the most powerful and influential voices in American televangelism—Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell among them—were urging viewers to contact Texas's governor, George W. Bush, and plead for clemency. One follower was author Mark Beaver's father, a devout Southern Baptist deacon who asked Beaver to put his fledgling literary ambitions to work by composing a letter on his behalf to Governor Bush.
  
  Through a merger of true crime, social history, and memoir, The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker illustrates how a seemingly distant news story triggers a national reckoning and exposes a growing divide in America's evangelical community. It's a tale of how one woman defies all conventions of death row inmates, and her saga serves as an unlikely but fascinating prism for exploring American culture and the limits of forgiveness and transformation. It's also a deeply personal reflection on how a father's request leads his son to struggle with who he was raised to be and who he imagines becoming.

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