Menhaj Huda, director of the 2006 film 'Kidulthood', writes and directs this coming-of-age drama about a young British-Asian man caught in a culture clash. Ash (James Floyd) keeps his head down during the week, adhering to his family's strict moral codes and working for the family business. But as the weekend comes around he is let loose into the very different world of London's club scene, where he pursues his long-held dream of becoming a DJ.

Is it true that the trans-Atlantic slave trade, about which so much has been heard in recent years, would have been impossible without the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of African leaders? Slavery was a common practice in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans, with the trade in black slaves, who were transported from Africa to America and the islands of the Caribbean, aided by the African traders who benefited from the arrangement. Even when Europe and America outlawed slavery and the slave trade, those living in Africa clung tenaciously to their old ways and refused to relinquish what was, to them, a time-honoured custom. It is for this reason that slavery lingers on in Africa to this day. In this book, Simon Webb explores the history of slavery in Africa and finds that it was not necessarily imposed upon the continent by Europeans, but was rather an integral part of many, perhaps most, cultures. Even when the British deployed their army and navy to try to suppress the trade in slaves during the nineteenth century, their efforts were largely ineffectual because many societies saw no reason to give up such an old, useful and profitable system. At a time when the subject of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is seldom out of the news, this book provides a vital corrective to the popularly accepted view of the matter. Nobody reading it will ever view slavery and the slave trade in quite the same light again.

Taking you through the year day by day, The Colchester Book of Days contains quirky, eccentric, amusing and important events and facts from different periods in the history of Britain's oldest recorded town. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed. Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of Colchester's archives, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

This book relates a chapter of American military history which many people would rather forget. When the United States came to the aid of Britain in 1942, the arrival of American troops was greeted with unreserved enthusiasm, but unfortunately, wartime sometimes brings out the worst, as well as the best, in people. A small number of the soldiers abused the hospitality they received by committing murders and rapes against British civilians. Some of these men were hanged or shot at Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset, which had been handed over for the use of the American armed forces. Due to a treaty between Britain and America, those accused of such offences faced an American court martial, rather than a British civilian court, which gave rise to some curious anomalies. Although rape had not been a capital crime in Britain for over a century, it still carried the death penalty under American military law and so the last executions for rape in Britain were carried out at this time in Shepton Mallet. _Fighting For America, Executed in Britain_ tells the story of every American soldier executed in Britain during the Second World War. The majority of the executed soldiers were either black or Hispanic, reflecting the situation in the United States itself, where the ethnicity of the accused person often played a key role in both convictions and the chances of subsequently being executed.

Unearthing London reveals the almost-forgotten ritual landscape which lies hidden beneath the streets of the modern capital. It is the city nobody knows, a vast and intricate network of hilltop shrines, tracks, sacred rivers, mounds, ditches, enclosures and manmade hills, all well over 2000 years old. This prehistoric landscape, moulded and shaped by early men and women, determined the position of landmarks such as St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. However, it has not been completely obliterated by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city, and Simon Webb traces the forgotten history of the capital to explore what remains of these early sites. He also examines the religious beliefs and mythology of the pre-Roman area which became London and looks at how the legends tie in with the various ancient features of the city. The book also features a guide to walking the ritual landscape today - routes that take in both twenty-first century architecture and ancient mystery. Whether a lifelong Londoner or a curious visitor, Unearthing London will reveal things you never knew about the global city.

In the years leading up to the First World War, the United Kingdom was subjected to a ferocious campaign of bombing and arson. Those conducting this terrorist offensive were members of the Women's Social and Political Union; better known as the suffragettes. The targets for their attacks ranged from St Paul's Cathedral and the Bank of England in London to theatres and churches in Ireland. The violence, which included several attempted assassinations, culminated in June 1914 with an explosion in Westminster Abbey. Simon Webb explores the way in which the suffragette bombers have been airbrushed from history, leaving us with a distorted view of the struggle for female suffrage. Not only were the suffragettes far more aggressive than is generally known, but there exists the very real and surprising possibility that their militant activities actually delayed, rather than hastened, the granting of the parliamentary vote to British women. AUTHOR: Simon Webb is the author of many non-fiction books, ranging from academic works on education to popular history. He has also written dozens of westerns under both his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, such as Harriet Cade, Fenton Sadler and Jay Clanton. He works as a consultant on the subject of capital punishment to television companies and filmmakers and also writes fro various magazines and newspapers, including the Times educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. 16 b/w illustrations

Between the beginning of the First World War in the summer of 1914 and the armistice in 1918, 51 men were executed in Britain. The great majority, over 80%, were hanged for murder, but in addition to this, 11 men were shot by firing squad at the Tower of London. One traitor and one spy were also hanged. Traitors, Spies and Killers tells the story of the most interesting and noteworthy of these executions and the crimes which led up to them. Most books about true crime focus upon the crimes themselves and the trials which followed them. In this book, Simon Webb explores in detail the fates of the condemned men, examining what happened to them after their trials and the circumstances of the executions. This makes occasionally for harrowing reading. Trends in murder are also examined. For instance, a third of those executed for murder during the First World War had used cut-throat razors to dispose of their victims; a type of crime unheard of today. Others used pokers and axes, which are also exceedingly uncommon murder weapons in the twenty first century. This is a book which will fascinate and horrify those with an interest in crime and the death penalty.

This book tells the fascinating story of the origin of our ideas about wizards, witches and fairies. We all have a clear mental image of the pointed hats worn by such individuals, which are based upon actual headgear dating back 3,000 years to the Bronze Age. Carefully sifting through old legends, archaeological evidence and modern research in genetics, Simon Webb shows us how our notions about fairies and elves, together with human workers of magic, have evolved over the centuries. This exploration of folklore, backed by the latest scientific findings, will present readers with the image of a lost world; the one used as the archetype for fantasy adventures from _The Lord of the Rings_ to _Game of Thrones_. In the process, the real nature of wizards will be revealed and their connection with the earliest European cultures thoroughly documented. After reading this book, nobody will ever be able to view Gandalf the wizard in the same light and even old fairy tales such as _Beauty and the Beast_ will take on a richer and deeper meaning. In short, our perception of wizards, witches and fairies will be altered forever.

Judicial hanging is regarded by many as being the quintessentially British execution. However, many other methods of capital punishment have been used in this country; ranging from burning, beheading and shooting to crushing and boiling to death. Execution: A History of Capital Punishment in Britain explores these types of execution in detail. Readers may be surprised to learn that a means of mechanical decapitation, the Halifax Gibbet, was being used in England five hundred years before the guillotine was invented. Boiling to death was a prescribed means of execution in this country during the Tudor period. From the public death by starvation of those gibbeted alive, to the burning of women for petit treason, this book examines some of the most gruesome passages of British history. This carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to those interested in the history of British executions.

Seven years after the Roman invasion of Britain in ad 43, Londinium was created. It would rise to become one of the most important Roman cities in Northern Europe. Life in Roman London approaches the history of Roman London in an entirely new way. Rather than focusing upon a handful of important figures such as procurators and statesmen, this book explores the lives and concerns of the ordinary citizens. Unlike many books about Roman history which are preoccupied with the basilicas, palaces, grand houses, statues and mosaics, Life in Roman London looks instead at the shops, houses and streets in which the majority of the fifty thousand or so inhabitants of the city spent their lives. In doing so, it reveals a city very different from the clean, white, classical metropolis familiar from the books of our childhood.

This is not a guidebook. This little book brings together past and present to offer a taste of Kensington & Chelsea. Learn about the movers and shakers who shaped this fantastic royal borough. The great and the good; the bad and the ugly. Small wonders, tall stories, TRIUMPH and tragedy. Best places - worst places. Local lingo, architecture, green spaces, events, traditions, fact, fiction. Origins, evolution, future. Written by a local who knows what makes KENSINGTON & CHELSEA tick.

There is an ancient and quite baseless myth that the use of torture has never been legal in Britain. This old wives' tale arose because torture had been neither endorsed nor forbidden by either statute or common law. In other words; the law has, until the late twentieth century, never had anything to say on the subject. In fact, torture, inflicted both as punishment and as an aid to interrogation, has been a constant and recurring feature of British life; from the beginning of the country's recorded history, until well into the twentieth century. Even as late as 1976, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British Army was guilty of the systematic torture of suspected terrorists. In 'A History of Torture in Britain' Simon Webb traces the terrible story of the deliberate use of pain on prisoners in Britain and its overseas possessions. Beginning with the medieval trial by ordeal, which entailed carrying a red-hot iron bar in your bare hand for a certain distance, through to the stretching on the rack of political prisoners and the mutilation of those found guilty of sedition; the evidence clearly shows that Britain has relied heavily upon torture, both at home and abroad, for almost the whole of its history. This sweeping and authoritative account of a grisly and distasteful subject is likely to become the definitive history of the judicial infliction of pain in Britain and its Empire.

This is not a guidebook. This little book brings together past and present to offer a taste of Kingston upon Thames. Learn about the movers and shakers who shaped this fantastic borough. The great and the good; the bad and the ugly. Small wonders, tall stories. TRIUMPH and tragedy. Best places - worst places. Local lingo, architecture, green spaces, events, traditions, fact, fiction. Origins, evolution, future. Written by a local who knows what makes Kingston upon Thames tick.