Pen & Sword Books

“This book is moral dynamite. It reveals not only what men can do in war but also what war can do to men.” — Norman Davies, historian and academicStefan Dąmbski joined the Polish Home Army in 1942 when he was just 16 years old. The Home Army formed the military wing of the Polish Underground, the resistance movement established to fight the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War. During this occupation, the Home Army passed death sentences on hundreds of individuals — both Nazi enemies and colluding Polish compatriots. As one of the few Home Army members who volunteered to carry out these death sentences, the young Dąmbski quickly became a seasoned executioner.In July 1945, Dąmbski was transferred to the West and ended up in the United States where he remained until his death in 1993. In his final years, Dąmbski recorded his story in fascinating, shocking detail. After his death, his memoirs came into the possession of his niece and nephew before eventually arriving at the KARTA Foundation in 2005. Initially published in the original Polish, Sobieralski’s translation of Dąmbski’s records now gives English-language readers a hugely important insight into the mind of this seasoned executioner. Readers are made aware of the facts and actions of Dąmbski’s life, but are witness to the lifelong moral struggle that accompanied these actions and led him to reflect on ideas of heroism, patriotism, guilt and on the very act of war itself.Marek Sobieralski, based in Wiltshire, regularly writes for History of War magazine and published his first book, The Katyn Diaries,  in 2021. This was a collection of diaries of Polish military officers murdered by the NKVD in 1940, translated into English. He continues to work on various diverse writing projects.

With an illustrious career stretching back almost six decades and encompassing nearly 50 solo studio albums alone, Neil Young is one of the most prolific, compelling figures in the history of popular music, equally revered as both an acoustic singer-songwriter and as the force of nature frontman of rock legends Crazy Horse. As he enters his late seventies, Young remains as energetic and relevant as ever, locking horns with streaming giant Spotify in protest against their alleged promotion of COVID-19 misinformation and continuing to release new music when many of his contemporaries have long since faded away into comfortable retirement.Neil Young: Album by Album is the most complete retrospective of the great Canadian’s discography ever written. Covering his entire solo career from his 1968 debut to 2022’s World Record, the book offers in-depth, track-by-track reviews of every Young studio album, providing an engaging insight into the restless creativity that gave the world classics like After the Goldrush, Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps.Also including detailed timelines covering the different phases of Young’s life, sections on the artist’s early years and his live and archive releases, and an entertaining essay ranking his solo albums from worst to best, this comprehensive book is equally indispensable for both diehard Young fans and those listeners seeking to discover more of his formidable body of work.

From puzzles and cards to pinball and die games, find out about the children's games produced as propaganda during World War II.During the Second World War, hundreds of games were manufactured by the British, Germans and Americans aimed at children. Despite being cheaply made due to the wartime economy, the games were often fun to play and challenging to win. They also had considerable propaganda value helping to manipulate children into supporting the war. To get their attention, many of the games incorporated dramatic artwork and were based on real wartime events from the evacuation of children in 1939 to the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945.This book features a large selection of different games produced by the British, Germans and Americans and tells the stories behind their wartime propaganda. The Nazis in particular prided themselves on producing games which promoted and glamourised war, exploiting children's patriotism and pride in German conquests. Some of their most insidious games included Juden Raus! (Jews Out!) and Bomber über England (Bomber over England). However, the British and Americans also produced unethical games like Target for Tonight which promoted the carpet bombing of Germany and Atomic Bomb, a dexterity puzzle about the nuclear bombing of Japan.The games featured in this book include roll and move games with a board and die, pinball and similar ‘shooting’ games, dexterity and other puzzles and card games. They were made out of paper, card, wood, rubber, bakelite plastic and initially metal. Remarkably despite wartime restrictions games were manufactured throughout the conflict to meet the demand from boys and girls as they closely followed the changing fortunes of the war. Today many of the games have become scarce so for collectors a guide to their value and rarity is included.

Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist exposed a brutal but commonplace system of child exploitation to Victorian readers. Conditions in workhouses, factories, and child criminal gangs posed lethal and daily hazards to children born to poverty. Several much-needed reforms took place in the aftermath of Oliver Twist’s publication. But what were the circumstances of childhood poverty in Victorian London and other English cities? And who were the real Oliver Twists?This book explores how nineteenth century laws and social institutions entirely failed to protect children born to poor and unstable families. Despite a horrible labyrinth of ten-hour workdays, illegal indentures, and forced emigration, however, many children overcame terrible prospects and thrived. Some of these remarkable stories of childhood resilience, innovation, and enterprise have been lost to the general reader. This book brings those stories back to light.

Rudolph de Lisle RN entered Naval College in 1868 aged 13, and was only 31 when he died, ironically for a naval officer, in the Sudanese desert at the Battle of Abu Klea, 17 January 1885.An inveterate letter writer and talented artist, he consistently documented his eventful naval career as he traveled the world. His letters home were embellished with stunning sketches and watercolors.In August 1884, Rudolph was selected to join the Naval Brigade in the Gordon Relief Expedition led by General Sir Garnet Wolseley. His principal role was to help drag troop boats over the six cataracts that blocked their way up the Nile to Khartoum.Rudolph’s letters graphically describe this historic journey. We read of the struggles and ingenuity of the officers and men, the hardships and the daily dangers, and the shambolic, sometimes comic, chaos peculiar to the seemingly impossible task. His sketches, some of which were published in the Illustrated London News, vividly portray the challenges facing the Expedition.Gerard de Lisle, Rudolph's great nephew, has edited and compiled this superb collection, so that it can be appreciated by a wider audience and provide a fascinating insight into this famous yet too long overlooked military campaign. The result will appeal widely and particularly to art collectors and naval historians.

The events are set out not just from a high command perspective but from grass-roots, with all the human suffering, trauma, compassion and even survival. There is real compassion and human understanding, especially in Bosnia, with sufferings of all sides.The writing is attractive and very readable,  modest, self-effacing, honest, with hints of P G Wodehouse(!), and intimate. Readers will feel involved and brought into author’s confidence - and this is a gift of good authorship.There are deep and important themes apart from immediate policy and action, notably the nature of war and warfare as a fundamental human condition, the real-life horror of war, and self-sacrifice. And examination of leadership is very impressive, with the trust which is vital to success. A chapter on ‘surprise’ in political and military history is fascinating for historians. Technology is a vital theme and covered for the lay reader to grasp and even cyber technology. The chapters on relations with other arms, government bodies including the MOD and distinguished colleagues, and all ranks, are highly informative and reveal what to some is a secret world.

During the period covered by this new book the Royal Navy faced some of its greatest challenges, both at sea confronting the increasingly capable and impressive Soviet Navy, and on shore when it faced policy crises that threatened the survival of much of the fleet. During this remarkable period, the Navy had rarely been so focussed on a single theater of war — the Eastern Atlantic — but also rarely so politically vulnerable.The author sets out to analyze shadowing operations and confrontations at sea with Soviet ships and submarines; the Navy’s role in the enormous NATO and Warsaw Pact naval exercises that acted out potential war scenarios; individual operations from the Falklands and the 1990–91 Gulf War to the Beira and Armilla patrols; the development of advanced naval technologies to counter Soviet capabilities; policy-making controversies as the three services fought for resources — including the controversial 1981 Nott defense review; and what life was like in the Cold War navy for ratings and officers. The book, the first to cover this subject in depth for more than thirty years, will make use of the full range of archival sources that have been publicly available over the last two decades, but of which little use has been made by historians.This work is destined to become a definitive naval history of the period, and also provide a fascinating and gripping narrative of a navy under threat from many directions but which survived and eventually prospered, winning a remarkable victory in the far South Atlantic more than 7,000 miles from its expected battleground in the North Atlantic. Elegantly written for a wide audience, it will be a very significant volume for professional and enthusiast alike.

Martin Packard is an extraordinary man who has led an extraordinary life. An idealist and a man of liberal instincts, his enthusiasms resulted in him having an inside track in several major events of recent decades, including the coup and bloody dictatorship in Greece and the unravelling of the Soviet Union. Easy going, warm and generous with his friendship, his life story is a ripping read. — Peter Murtagh, journalist and author of The Rape of Greece (Simon & Schuster, London, 1994)His story needed telling. — Peter Preston, editor of The Guardian 1975–1995This gripping biography is a classic tale of fact being stranger than fiction. Martin Packard was an incurable romantic who thought he could do ethical business in the chaos of Gorbachev's perestroika Russia, but was constantly thwarted by more ruthless rivals or incompetent partners. He was a Don Quixote of the Cold War. His story is a fascinating, alternative and very personal view on the confrontations of his times, from the cynical US and UK policies towards Greece and Cyprus, to the chaotic collapse of the USSR. His tale suggests that cock-up, not conspiracy, is usually the most plausible explanation of history. — Quentin Peel, former Moscow Correspondent and Foreign Editor of the Financial Times.Wonderful. They don’t make men like that anymore. — Helena Smith, Correspondent of The Guardian for Greece and Cyprus.This biography describes how a British naval officer became a Kremlin favorite and CIA target as Gorbachev’s Kremlin decided to open the Soviet economy to the west. In 1985, Moscow reached out to Martin Packard, a retired British naval commander. He was promised unrivalled access to the hidden riches of the Soviet Empire with a cornucopia spread before him as he traveled this long closed land from the Baltic to the Bering Sea.A harbinger of the technology and foreign exchange needed to halt the Soviet decline, to some Russians he was the most important foreign businessman in the Soviet Union. But, as the Communist Party imploded, this previously-undescribed offer turned into a Faustian bargain, and his life became a captivating saga of rags-to-riches-to-rags.This book describes his rise, the details of his freelancing for Gorbachev — and his fall.A former intelligence analyst at the British Mediterranean command in Malta, Packard’s role as Scarlet Pimpernel of the Greek Colonels saw him forced out of the Royal Navy. He then became one of the largest jeans manufacturers in Europe. In this capacity, the insiders of Gorbachev’s perestroika identified him to help them lift the life of the Soviet peoples, an unlikely partnership of the Kremlin and a quintessential Briton, a scion of Empire, Church and Navy, but a non-conformist in every sense.It is a political tale, where Packard clashes with the British Foreign Office and the CIA in Cyprus and the Colonels’ Greece. Forced out of the Navy, he heads the English Cell of the Greek resistance, shipping printing presses, passports and petards across Europe to Athens. He then becomes an intimate of the wayward but brilliant Dom Mintoff and survives a mysterious poison attempt by ‘Erica’ at a Moscow airport.It is also a deeply human tale, of a charismatic figure who rose so high, mingled with the mighty of East and West, and then lost it all.

For Ireland, the year 1798 saw a major rebellion breaking out against rule from London, a time in which Britain was in its fifth year of a hard-fought war against revolutionary France. Set in motion by the Society of United Irishmen, an underground organization with links to Paris, the rebellion was eventually crushed by an overwhelming force of arms. In this new, dramatic account, Philip MacDougall shines a light on a little covered aspect of this history: the United Irish plot to capture a number of British warships and the planned use of those vessels in support of the rebellion that broke out in 1798. The means by which those ships were to be taken, not by direct external attack but by mutinous intrigue directed from on board, is fully explored.While ships blockading the French port of Brest returned to re-victual in Cawsand Bay, with many of the officers on shore leave, it was an ideal time for the plotting of mutinies. United Irishman alongside English and Scottish republicans could safely mix with those on other ships to develop a unified strategy.This book offers a micro study of how the planned mutiny plot developed and was co-ordinated. Personalities, cliques and idealists are seen as taking leading roles, with attention given to the motivating issues that lay behind those risk takers who knew that failure would result in likely hanging from the yardarm. Based on research from the National Archives, contemporary newspaper reports and the detailed hand written minutes of the courts martial held upon those identified as rebel leaders and some of their supporters (containing the actual words of the people of the lower deck) this is a full and balanced account of the plot which, if successful, would have re-written history.

Transcribed from Tupper Carey's journals, vividly details his experiences and observations as a Commissary General during the Peninsular War, Waterloo campaign, and post-war occupation in France.Transcribed for the first time from Commissary General Tupper Carey's handwritten journals, this is the second of two volumes which cover the lively career of a Commissary who served throughout the Peninsular war and Waterloo campaign.Written with vivid detail, these journals offer a truly unique window into the life of a Commissary and the campaigns in which he served. Although a civilian and greatly discouraged from putting himself in mortal danger, Tupper was often to be found watching the fighting from some nearby vantage point and often describes the actions he witnessed, particularly where it affected his own charge, whether a battalion, a brigade or even later an entire division. Interspersed with these primary roles, he was often seconded to form supply bases in the rear of the army, or to hastily remove or destroy stores when threatened by enemy advances. He also talks freely about fellow officers, and being a private journal written simply for the eyes of his immediate family, he is not shy in giving his honest opinions of both his subordinates or indeed his superiors.This volume covers the period from the launch of Wellington’s great advance into Spain in 1813 until the end of the war in 1814, the Waterloo campaign of 1815 and the Army of Occupation in France from 1815 to 1818, when Tupper became arguably the most important Commissary working for the Duke of Wellington.

An intimate look at James II and VII, exploring his romantic escapades, tumultuous life, and the personal struggles that shaped his controversial reign.The personal side of James II and VII has long been obscured by the propaganda storm emanating from the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, one of the great founding myths of modern Britain. Justine Brown unveils James the man, teasing out a fresh dimension. The Private Life of James II details the romantic adventures of a true Cavalier—handsome, courageous, loyal, pleasure-seeking, lusty, determined and soulful. The Stuart “spare” briefly experienced a golden childhood before, aged nine, he was flung headlong into the English Civil Wars of 1642–1649. After escaping England in disguise, he endured the execution of his adored father, Charles I, and years of exile on the Continent. In 1660 the Duke of York returned to his native land in triumph. He rode into the capital at the right hand of his brother, Charles II. James fully embraced the role of Restoration rake, headed up the Royal Navy, fought the Fire of London with gusto, and was a great patron of theater, painting, and music.“The darling of the people” until his dramatic conversion to Roman Catholicism transformed him into England’s scapegoat, the heir to the Crown had a turbulent road ahead. Come to understand what truly drove James, and learn about his complex relationships with his children, his two remarkable wives, Anne Hyde and Mary of Modena; his many mistresses, as well as the extraordinary friends and rivals who helped shape the fate of this consequential Stuart monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The flight of King James II in November 1688 was a seminal moment in British history. The deposed Catholic King set up house and home in Paris, William and Mary succeeded to the throne of England and over fifty years of trouble, strife, war and execution began to consume England, Scotland and Ireland. The Jacobites — supporters of the dethroned Stuart dynasty — were adamant that James and his heirs should sit once more on the English throne. Invasion followed invasion, battle came after battle, culminating with the defeat of Charles Edward Stuart at Culloden in 1745.The story of those battles and invasions has often been told. However, they have invariably focussed on the male participants, from Scottish clansmen to men like Rob Roy and Bonnie Dundee, from the Old to the Young Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie, the darling of the late Jacobite movement, they created a legend that still hovers over the period. But very little has ever been written about the women who were involved.Apart from figures of note like Flora MacDonald, the role of women in the rebellions and risings has been largely forgotten. Yet there were hundreds involved in the Jacobite cause. Women tended to wounded soldiers, gave safety and comfort to fleeing Jacobites, and sometimes led the riots and rebellions themselves. Many were imprisoned, many sent away from their homelands, deported to strange and distant lands. Others carried out daring escapes from prisons like The Tower of London and wrote poems and songs that are still read and sung today. Some, women like Jenny Cameron and Grizzel Mhor, became household names for a short while, forgotten now but resurrected here. There are many more, women like Anne Farquharson, Colonel Anne as she was known, who defeated 1500 redcoats with a team of five servants in an engagement called the Rout of Moy. They were — and remain — mostly unknown and forgotten. This book tells their stories.Phil Carradice's well-researched and easy, elegant style of writing brings these forgotten women back to life, giving them the rewards they so richly deserve.

The Soldier Kings of France explores the reigns of eight monarchs, from King Charles II to Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing their roles in expanding French power and shaping European history.In early October 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte led the governing Directory’s army against the rioting royalists in Paris (who were rebelling to restore the monarchy), crushing their campaign and beginning his rise to supremacy and greatness. Napoleon is one of the eight sovereigns discussed in The Soldier Kings of France, who brought glory, power and territorial expansion to France, while altering the course of European history. The work begins in the ninth century with King Charles II’s seizure of the French crown and concludes in the nineteenth century with Napoleon’s rise and fall. In the book, the reign of Philip II and his participation in the Third Crusade to the Holy Land is the second monarch reviewed, followed by Louis XI, who ended the Hundred Year War with the English and Louis XII’s rule is next, which fought to expand French territorial holdings into the Lombardy region of Italy. The fifth king surveyed is Francis I and his enlargement of French lands into Italy, while the sixth king is Henry IV, whose conversion to the Catholic faith ended thirty years of French religious wars and established a stable and popular regime. The kingship of Louis XIV is the book’s seventh overlord, whose rule was occupied with wars to expand his territories and the building of France into the centre of European culture, arts, architecture and music during the Baroque era, while presiding over a magnificent court at the Versailles Palace. The final sovereign lord discussed is Napoleon Bonaparte, who led his armies to victory, establishing French dominance across Europe until his defeats at Leipzig and Waterloo and his forced exile to the remote and desolate island of Elba in the south Atlantic Ocean.

In 1926, Tom Rolt who was then sixteen years old, abandoned his public school education. Having taken a job with a small firm of agricultural engineers, he realised that he had found his life’s calling. But the way ahead was neither smooth nor easy. Having secured a premium apprenticeship, the firm which took him on foundered and although he eventually qualified as a mechanical engineer, the 1930s depression made it almost impossible to find regular employment.Nothing daunted, with the encouragement of his mysterious companion ‘Cara’, he turned to writing. His literary career flourished alongside his association with the Vintage Sports Car Club, the Inland Waterways Association and the Talyllyn Railway. Between his Inland Waterways Association and Talyllyn phases, Angela, his first wife, left him to join Billy Smart’s Circus, and Sonia –an actress-turned-boatwoman — would become his second wife. Over the course of his life, he produced over thirty books, their subject matters ranging from canals and railways to engineering biography; company histories; a collection of accomplished ghost stories and a topographical survey of Worcestershire. He also wrote polemics about the plight of the craftsman in a world which relied increasingly upon mass production.In this book, the first full-length biography of Tom Rolt and a complement to his auto-biographical Landscape trilogy, Victoria Owens draws upon his surviving letters and unpublished manuscripts to tell the story of the engineer-turned-writer who made Britain’s industrial past the stuff of enduring literature.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Britain had eased its problem of crowded jails and surplus criminals by packing them into ships and sending them off to the American colonies to be sold as what amounted to slave labour. All this came to an end with the revolution of 1775 and the legal system was stuck with an ever-increasing army of desperate felons.As there was no national prison system, these felons were crammed on to derelict sailing ships, the hulks, and put to hard labour in appalling conditions, mainly along the rivers Thames and Medway. Their story has been largely ignored by generations of historians and here, for the first time, detailed accounts of their plight, along with the lives and careers of the quite extraordinary men who ruled over them, is examined. Duncan Campbell, for instance, was the ship's captain and plantation owner who first organised the hulk system, and Aaron Graham the magistrate who spied upon, and then defended, the leader of the Nore mutiny and employed William Bligh of the Bounty mutiny to captain his ships.There are biographies of some of the colorful rogues, children and gentleman thieves who were crammed together and condemned to spend years in despair, starvation and degradation, often with their arms and legs manacled and subject to vicious punishments for minor infringements of the regulations.In theory, the hulks were simply holding pens until convicts could be shipped off to the new colonies in Australia, but many sentenced to be transported for terms of between seven years to life were destined to serve most of, if not all, their term onboard. Those that did make it to the other side of the world after a harrowing journey were seldom better off and their story is told in the final chapter.

Is there a shark movie that is scarier than Jaws? What is the sneaky secret hidden in the Loch Ness monster’s name? How did the Gill-man in Creature from the Black Lagoon become a romantic hero? Do mermaids count as sea monsters? What terrifying sea creature was discovered to really exist, and just what on earth is a globster?From Kraken to kaiju, Open Water to The Shallows, monsters of the deep have fascinated and horrified us for centuries. There’s even a name for the fear of deep bodies of water: thalassophobia. Humans have a natural fear of predators in the water, and yet we just can’t stop thinking about them! There are a lot of deep water monster movies out there; good, bad, strange and ‘so bad it’s good’. This book has collected some of the best, worst and most interesting out there to tell you about.If you ever wanted to know your crocodile from your Cthulhu and find out how they make the monsters come alive, whether you like your monsters in the ocean or in lakes, based on real animals or totally made up, with fins or tentacles, one head or five, if you love your movie monsters of the deep then this book was written for you.

Although Che Guevara was murdered almost sixty years ago, the famous red-and-black image of him is still widely seen around the world: at leftist political demonstrations and, ironically — given his strong opposition to capitalism — on many commercial products. However, he was a controversial figure during his lifetime — and remains so today. On both the political left and the political right, attitudes to him vary widely: while some see him as a romantic, highly-principled and legendary fighter for the world’s poor and exploited masses, others depict him either as an unrealistic and thus irrelevant adventurer, or even as a ruthless and cold-blooded butcher. Consequently, biographies about him over the decades have ranged from the overly sympathetic, to the extremely hostile.As well as covering aspects of his family life and his loves — and his early, sometimes less-than-revolutionary, attitudes — this biography, as expected, deals with those areas for which Che is best known. These include his adventurous explorations, as a young man on a motorbike, of Latin and Central America; his leadership and bravery during Cuba’s Revolutionary War; his practical and theoretical contributions to the conduct of guerrilla warfare; and his emergence as an international revolutionary legend who inspired radical young people in the 1960s, and who continues to inspire rebellious people around the world today.However, this biography also explores other aspects of Che’s life which are not so well-known. From an early age, he developed a keen love of reading, covering an eclectic mix of adventure stories, poetry, history and philosophy — and, from his teens, he began a lifetime habit of making notes on what he read. He also became a strong chess player, able enough to draw with one of the world’s leading grandmasters. Even during guerrilla campaigns, he managed to maintain those loves.Since his murder, he has emerged as an original contributor to Marxist economics and philosophy. It was his wide-ranging studies that led him to become an outspoken opponent of the ‘orthodox’ communism followed in the Soviet Union — and of its Cold War foreign policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’. His tolerance of, and willingness to work with, those having different views saw him accused of Maoism - and even Trotskyism. More accurately, Che has bequeathed the unique strand of revolutionary socialism known as ‘Guevarism’.

Since the Venerable Bede wrote his iconic Ecclesiastic History of England in the eighth century, King Penda has been relegated to the role of villain and treated as a barrier to advancement in a battle between new ideas and a new culture. Paul Barrett outlines the background to the Anglo-Saxon takeover in England and explores the broad concepts of the Angles’ traditional culture, before delving into the life of Penda (605 — 655). Penda’s life spanned the first half of the seventh century, the era which gave birth to national identities which still form the central components of modern Britain; Wales, Scotland, and England all take shape through this period. Penda’s seemingly impossible ascent to prominence starts on the very periphery of power and ends with the dominance of Britain. He is at the centre of Mercia’s birth, expansion and rise. Throughout his reign his kingdom becomes a bastion of stability in a period of endemic warfare, climate change challenges, cultural competition, and unstable nation-to nation relationships. Throughout his life Penda challenges the status quo and shows the value of cultural pluralism in a time when the growing power of a new faith, Christianity, was pushing all others into extinction. Guided by his loyalty to an ancient culture, service to his family, and his powerful Queen Cynewise, Penda launched Mercia towards eventual supremacy, which would last for over 200 years. He was the last of the great Anglo-Saxon heathen warlords.

Taylor Swift for Adults is a tantalizing opening salvo in Swiftology — the study of the work of Taylor Swift. While Swift's private life has been covered to death, her talent as a lyricist has rarely been analyzed. Until now. Swifties are well aware that she's a lyricist par excellence but this book makes that case to the unbelievers. Swift's gift as a songwriter is not merely sentimentality and circumstance — and this book takes a deep look at her 10 albums to isolate what makes her a beloved lyricist for millions.Any serious study of a lyricist or poet needs to establish what are the tropes, the patterns, and the style of that artist, and this book does precisely that. With careful attention to poetic detail, the scansion, flow, and form of her writing, this brings out those details that pass by in a flash on the radio, bringing them fully into focus. Many have made the argument that Swift is a gifted lyricist — in online forums and YouTube comments — but this is the first time in writing those arguments have been given shape and serious attention.It's a book aimed at adults but not po-faced bores — taking a subject seriously can also mean laughing at swearwords and sex metaphors. Rather than po-faced and straitened, this is a lightly witty book expressing, at its core, a deep affection for this generation's favorite songwriter.

When the Beatles burst onto the pop scene in 1962, they not only took the music world by storm but they also brought with them a counter culture that was to have far-reaching effects. With their long hair, humour and irreverent attitude towards authority, they were a breath of fresh air to a generation who had grown weary of the greyness of the post-war years.Beatlemania was to unleash a revolution against an outdated age. The 1950s with its oppressive and authoritarian attitudes was ready for change and young people, desperate to escape suburbia with its stifling formality, were set to lead that rebellion.In politics, fashion, education, the arts, religion, television, women’s rights and universities, the time had come to challenge the old order. And in came the swinging sixties with its more liberal attitudes offering hope of change and a more peaceful and just world. The introduction of the contraceptive pill, legalized abortion, gay rights, easier divorce and the relaxing of censorship were all part of this social revolution.And it wasn’t just in Britain. The influence of the Beatles reverberated across Europe and, most of all, in America where teenagers not only campaigned against a war in Vietnam but also for civil rights in their own country.This book tells the story of the Sixties and how the Beatles’ influence had such an impact on British society. It’s a social history of Britain told by Stephen Kelly who regularly watched the Beatles at the Cavern and experienced first hand the changes that were to take place.