Ethel Baddeley a lively feisty young girl was born in Oldham in 1915 in poor but happy circumstances.Grandma's Letters tells the story of her growing up during the First World War and of her struggle as a young mum in the Second World War when her husband of just a few months left to fight the Japanese in Burma and India. Unbeknown to them at the time of his departure she was pregnant and it would be four long years before Ken would see his daughter.The last chapter tells of Ken's War deriven mainly from a diary which he kept of the long journey to reach Northern India and his stories of fighting a vicious enemy.However the major part of the book consists of Grandma Howard's letters all written when she was over eighty to her children and her six grandchildren. They say that letter writing is a dying art and that it is a great joy to read other's letters. Her letters are a joy. Repeated exactly as they were written, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and as she mentions complete with breaks for the toilet, a snooze or food. She writes about the birds and flowers in her garden, religion, politics, modern society, family values, the past, husband Ken, death and dying. She is funny, outrageous, frank, sensitive, warm and over the years has exasperated, enlightened, shocked and confounded her friends and family. Her letters are an insight into a lost world of good manners, respect and caring and reveal the daily struggle of the elderley to cope in a society so alien to that in which they grew up. At 91, her eyesight failing she no longer writes or paints but still rails against the fading of the light.A lovely unusual book.

No church in Canada has generated more news coverage for more years than Vancouver's First United. That has everything to do with its location in the heart of the infamous Downtown Eastside and with its role as caregiver and defender of the poor, the needy and the homeless inhabitants of Canada's poorest postal code. Like Mother Teresa's mission to the slums of Calcutta, the First United seizes its position among the marginalized as an opportunity to serve and has proven a shining example of humanitarian activism for 125 years.
Famous for its defence of the jobless poor during the Great Depression under the leadership of the Rev. Andrew Roddan, it is now equally renowned as a bastion of support for modern-day street people with more complicated problems. With its roots in the early Presbyterian and Methodist Church Missions established in Vancouver in 1885 and 1888, the history of the First United Church spans that of the city it resides in. During that time it has seen the area around it and the population it serves undergo tremendous changes, as initial generations moved out to the suburbs, and the congregation assisted with the settling of newcomers from all over the world.
In this well-written and lively account, Burrows, himself a United Church minister for over four decades, brings his lifetime of commitment and compassion to the remarkable history of the First United Church in "Hope Lives Here."

A report on the excavation of a series of plots, defined by ditches and adjoining metalled roads, in use from the 2nd century into the 3rd century AD. The plots contained a ditched enclosure, two roundhouses and other contemporary features. A double-ditched enclosure was laid out further to the west, set within a ditched compound. Both the enclosure and the compound contained elaborate 'funnel-like' entrance arrangements which suggest use by livestock.

Ethel Baddeley a lively feisty young girl was born in Oldham in 1915 in poor but happy circumstances.Grandma's Letters tells the story of her growing up during the First World War and of her struggle as a young mum in the Second World War when her husband of just a few months left to fight the Japanese in Burma and India. Unbeknown to them at the time of his departure she was pregnant and it would be four long years before Ken would see his daughter.The last chapter tells of Ken's War deriven mainly from a diary which he kept of the long journey to reach Northern India and his stories of fighting a vicious enemy.However the major part of the book consists of Grandma Howard's letters all written when she was over eighty to her children and her six grandchildren. They say that letter writing is a dying art and that it is a great joy to read other's letters. Her letters are a joy. Repeated exactly as they were written, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and as she mentions complete with breaks for the toilet, a snooze or food. She writes about the birds and flowers in her garden, religion, politics, modern society, family values, the past, husband Ken, death and dying. She is funny, outrageous, frank, sensitive, warm and over the years has exasperated, enlightened, shocked and confounded her friends and family. Her letters are an insight into a lost world of good manners, respect and caring and reveal the daily struggle of the elderley to cope in a society so alien to that in which they grew up. At 91, her eyesight failing she no longer writes or paints but still rails against the fading of the light.A lovely unusual book.

"It Happened in Shropshire is a vibrant and compelling account of the county's diverse heritage; its heroes, its battles, its discoveries, its crimes.Bob Burrows's highly readable prose transports the reader through time, racing across the landscape of Shropshire's past from the woolly mammoths of 10,000 BC, the Roman occupation of Wroxeter and the Battle of Shrewsbury, to the Industrial Revolution and to the sporting achievements and murderous exploits of recent years.The book celebrates Salopians of national renown such as Charles Darwin, Clive of India, Wilfred Owen and Percy Thrower, as well as commemorating the accidents and disasters of: Shropshire's ghostly past...and presentThe legends of 'Mad Jack' Mytton and the charismatic outlaw Sir Humphrey KynastonA celebration of Salopian sporting champions: Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Richie Woodhall, Billy WrightShropshire's notorious and also its heroic vicarsThe 'Black Panther' and other Salopian murderers exposed"