Alec Forshaw's Books

Growing Up in Cambridge

From Austerity to Prosperity

By: Alec Forshaw

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Growing Up in Cambridge

From Austerity to Prosperity

By: Alec Forshaw

It is said that, however long you live, and however far you travel, the streets and fields where you played as a child will always be home to you. So Cambridge is for Alec Forshaw. This is a story of a childhood in Cambridge in the 1950s and '60s, followed by three undergraduate years and three decades of frequent and regular visits until the ties of the parental home were broken. These are memories set down before they too disappear and they recall a Cambridge which for many will have faded. Those who have read Gwen Raverat's Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood will have seen in her description of the town and its society a different world. The reminiscences herein may rekindle more recent recollections, or simply entertain and amuse.

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Page Count

214

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752480081

ISBN 13

9780752480084

1970s London

Discovering the Capital

By: Alec Forshaw

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1970s London

Discovering the Capital

By: Alec Forshaw

Following a sheltered childhood and a sequestered education in Cambridge, and having missed out on the swinging sixties, Alec Forshaw was ready for a dose of the wider world. London in the early 1970s was where the lights shone brightest. In reality, it was still a city struggling to find its post-war identity, full of declining industries and derelict docklands, a townscape blighted by undeveloped bomb sites, demonic motorway proposals and slum clearance schemes. The streets were full of costermongers and greasy-spoon cafes, but enlivened by ghettos of immigrants and student culture. Ideas of traffic constraint and recycling rubbish were in their infancy. It was a decade which saw the three-day week, the Notting Hill riots and the last of the anti-Vietnam war protests. This sequel to Growing Up in Cambridge portrays the London of over thirty years ago as it appeared to a young man in his twenties, finding his feet, coming of age, and stumbling across the sights and sounds of an extraordinary city.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0750956461

ISBN 13

9780750956468

Growing Up in Cambridge

From Austerity to Prosperity

By: Alec Forshaw

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Growing Up in Cambridge

From Austerity to Prosperity

By: Alec Forshaw

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214

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752480081

ISBN 13

9780752480084

1980s London

Portrait of a Decade of Change

By: Alec Forshaw

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1980s London

Portrait of a Decade of Change

By: Alec Forshaw

This portrait of a fascinating era in London’s history will be of interest to all those who remember the 1980s or know London well.

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Page Count

234

Publisher

Amberley Publishing Limited

Published Date

ISBN 10

1398105953

ISBN 13

9781398105959

Gallipoli Diary 1915

By: Alec Riley

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Gallipoli Diary 1915

By: Alec Riley

“We had a look around, through periscopes, at the remains of recent fighting. The dead were on top, and we, the living, were below the general ground-level. The usual order of life and death were reversed.” So wrote Alec Riley in his account of an ordinary soldier in an extraordinary conflict, the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. A signaller with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, Riley was well placed to serve as an eyewitness to the sharp end of the campaign, being with the infantry but not of it. His task, and that of the small unit he served with and whose story he tells, was to maintain communications between the forward trenches and senior commanders in the rear, a conduit for at times unrealistic orders one way, and all-too-real situation reports the other. During his time on the peninsula, Riley kept meticulous notes, which form the basis of this account. He also took his camera to war, the resulting photos—some of which were used in the British official history of the campaign—flesh out his detailed story of life in and behind the lines. After four months on the peninsula, suffering from jaundice, septic sores and dysentery, Riley was evacuated sick, destined first for Mudros and then Blighty. He made sure to save his diary and camera. Although Gallipoli had done for Riley, Riley was not done with Gallipoli. Even while on the peninsula, he and his comrades had looked beyond the war. “We tried to imagine what the place would be like when the armies had gone. Achi Baba would be green again, the trenches would fall in and flatten; communication-trenches, through which thousands of men had passed, would be long and shallow depressions, and frogs and tortoises the only inhabitants of gully and nullah.” Remarkably, Alec Riley returned to find out, revisiting the peninsula at least twice. In 1930, he spent ten days wandering across the now overgrown fields of battle on a lone pilgrimage, revisiting places he knew intimately 15 years before. This pilgrimage, and a subsequent second visit, was intended to form the basis of a book, again illustrated with his trusty camera. Sadly, the original manuscript has been lost. But the editors have identified two extracts that appeared in print, which they present alongside a faithful transcript of Riley’s diary and notes. Also included is an unpublished introduction by General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of which Riley had been a small part, and with whom Riley had a decade-long correspondence. The editors of the diary, Michael Crane and Bernard de Broglio, have added copious footnotes and detailed biographical notes on the officers and men who come to life in Riley’s writings, as well as an order of battle and summary of arms for the 42nd Division at Gallipoli. Fourteen maps illustrate the actions, large and small, that Riley describes, alongside 47 black and white photographs, most showing the battlefield in 1915 and 1930. Gallipoli Diary 1915 will appeal to readers of WW1 and military history, but especially to those with an interest in the Gallipoli campaign. It will be bookended by two further diaries that record Alec Riley’s mobilisation and training in Egypt, and his time in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. Collectively they offer a unique window into the experiences of a pre-war Territorial soldier, before, during and after Gallipoli.

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Page Count

362

Publisher

Little Gully Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

064523592X

ISBN 13

9780645235920

Unbelievers

An Emotional History of Doubt

By: Alec Ryrie

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Unbelievers

An Emotional History of Doubt

By: Alec Ryrie

“How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.” —Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind. Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times. “Well-researched and thought-provoking...Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important.” —Christianity Today “A beautifully crafted history of early doubt...Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit.” —The Spectator “Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the ‘desperate search for certainty’ that drove thinkers like...John Donne to grapple with church dogma.” —New Yorker

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Page Count

273

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674243277

ISBN 13

9780674243279

Egypt Diary 1914-1915

By: Alec Riley

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Egypt Diary 1914-1915

By: Alec Riley

“From a ground-floor room at the end of one block shone a light. It came from a canteen. I saw others were busy while I was lowering a pint of shandy. I was so dry that I could not taste it—I could only just feel it. We felt better. Where there was beer there was hope.” Alec Riley was a signaller in the British Army’s 42nd (East Lancashire) Division. Egypt Diary 1914–1915 tells of the mobilisation of the East Lancashire Division at the outbreak of war, and the territorials’ eight-month-long period of training and garrison duty in Egypt prior to being deployed to Gallipoli. It brings to life the strange and exotic sights met by the Lancashire lads, most of whom had previously travelled no further than the annual camps held in North Wales. Written in Alec Riley’s dry style, the diary relates with wit and humour the many fascinating experiences and events Riley and his comrades encountered. Interactions with Egyptian locals are interspersed with Riley’s acute (and at times subversive) observations of his own officers. Desert marches, exercises and various mundane duties are recorded, as well as measures taken to guard canteens against Australian raiding parties. The book is lavishly illustrated with contemporary soldiers’ photographs of Egypt and four specially-produced maps. The editors, Michael Crane and Bernard de Broglio, have added extensive footnotes and detailed biographies of almost 40 officers and men who come to life in Alec Riley’s writings.

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Page Count

254

Publisher

Little Gully Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0645235954

ISBN 13

9780645235951

Netley Diary 1915-1916

By: Alec Riley

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Netley Diary 1915-1916

By: Alec Riley

Corporal Alec Riley served at Gallipoli in 1915 with the British 42nd (East Lancashire) Division. ‘Four months of Gallipoli gave me four diseases and 12 months in Netley.’ Riley chose the Royal Victoria Hospital for his convalescence because he wanted to know what a great military hospital was like. He kept a diary which he later turned into a narrative of his time at Netley. ‘I have tried,’ says Riley, ‘to give some idea of life in one of the many wards, the various patients I met, our habits, amusements, hopes and fears.’ Riley’s journey was shared by thousands of First World War soldiers who left the front sick and broken, to embark on the slow road to recovery. The book is richly illustrated with rarely seen images and includes a concise history of the Royal Victoria Hospital.

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Page Count

157

Publisher

Little Gully Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0645235989

ISBN 13

9780645235982

Smithfield

Past and Present

By: Alec Forshaw,Theo Bergström

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Smithfield

Past and Present

By: Alec Forshaw,Theo Bergström

Smithfield is a suburb of London.

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Page Count

208

Published Date

ISBN 10

0709040512

ISBN 13

9780709040514

Book's by Alec Forshaw

Growing Up in Cambridge

Growing Up in Cambridge

1970s London

1970s London

Growing Up in Cambridge

Growing Up in Cambridge

1980s London

1980s London

Gallipoli Diary 1915

Gallipoli Diary 1915

Unbelievers

Unbelievers

Egypt Diary 1914-1915

Egypt Diary 1914-1915

Netley Diary 1915-1916

Netley Diary 1915-1916

Smithfield

Smithfield

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