The Lady of Sudeley was Emma Brocklehurst who in 1847 married John Coucher Dent and spent nearly 50 years of her life as the chatelaine of Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. A remarkable woman with wide-ranging interests and prodigious energy Emma Dent devoted herself to the restoration of the Castle and to the people of the nearby Cotsold town of Winchcombe, as well as finding time to amass an amazing collection of artefacts which are now on permanent display at the Castle. With ane eye to posterity she also left a valuable legacy of diaries, letters and papers which Jean Bray has skilfully woven into this story of her life and times from her childhood in Macclesfield to her life at Sudeley. This new edition of the book includes an unique collection of illustrations from the Sudeley Castle archives.

Laurence was born in London and became a very successful commercial artist, producing many famous railway posters. Pick Up a Pencil covers his whole painting life, from the early drawings of detailed explosives for MI5 (they were used to help the army to disarm the bombs), through to his own fine art paintings. Jean's book is also full of stories including one where he took one of the bomb devices home to draw it, kept it under his bed, then found it was live