Bøger af John Christopher

He was responsible for building the Great Western Railway main line, introducing regular steamship travel across the Atlantic, building the first tunnel under a major river, and constructing docks, harbours and bridges that enabled Britain to expand and grow as the powerhouse of the world.

Bradshaw's Guide of 1863 was the staple book on what's what and where's where for the mid-Victorians and it gives the modern reader a unique insight into the world of the nineteenth-century railway travellers. The guide introduced the notion of seaside holidays to the general public and thanks to the railways it became possible for a town or city dweller to catch a train for a day-trip to the coast and still be home in time for supper. 'Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside, I do like to be beside the sea!I do like to stroll upon the Prom, Prom, Prom!Where the brass bands play:Tiddely-om-pom-pom!'Using Bradshaw's Guide illustrated with contemporary images and seaside postcards, John Christopher and Campbell McCutcheon take us on a tour of Britain's Victorian resorts.

Bradshaw's Guide provides a fascinating account of Victorian railway travel in the north-east of the UK. For the first time it is presented in a highly readable form in this new annotated volume, fully illustrated throughout with old and new colour images.

Based on a confidential wartime British Government report, this in-depth dossier details the inner workings of Organisation Todt, which not only built the Reichsautobahns, but also Germany's Siegfried Line and the Atlantic Wall. Founded by the charismatic Fritz Todt, the OT was responsible for the construction of all of the major military works across Europe - from the Siegfried Line and Atlantic Wall, to the U-Boat pens and V1 and V2 weapon sites. When Fritz Todt died in a fl ying accident in 1942 he was succeeded by Hitler's chief architect, Albert Speer, who was also appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Although the OT was not a military organization as such, it literally underpinned the Nazis' stranglehold on the occupied territories. Not just through the fortifications but also through the systematic and highly controversial use of enforced labour drawn from the populations of the vanquished countries. At its peak the OT consisted of a force of almost two million men and women, and it is through the depth of detail revealed in this handbook that we discover the largely untold human story.

Intended for the British Army as a contract for a small, Jeep-like, air-portable vehicle, the Mini Moke was a failure at this role and found its success as a fun, sunshine toy, equally at home on the beach as in the mountains. Over 50,000 were made and many still survive. Its most famous role was in the cult TV series The Prisoner. The Moke was manufactured in Britain and later in Australia and Portugal. With Mini running gear, the Moke is a practical and fun vehicle for the summer and this explains why so many survive to the present day. John Christopher tells the story of the Moke and the varieties from development to preservation.

King's Cross station was the terminus of the Great Northern Railway and was opened in 1852. Designed by Lewis Cubitt, it replaced a temporary station at Maiden Lane. It established itself as the London terminus of what is now known as the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh. From 1862, at 10 a.m. every weekday, the Flying Scotsman left King's Cross for the north, initially taking over ten hours to complete the journey but now taking only four hours from Edinburgh to London. Some of Britain's most famous locomotives, from the Ivatt Atlantics to the A3 and A4 Pacifics, Deltics and HSTs, have sped north from King's Cross.The underground station below the main line station encompasses six lines and was the scene of the disastrous King's Cross fire in 1987, following which it was rebuilt. King's Cross itself has been redeveloped many times over the years, and a fictional platform (93⁄4) made famous in the Harry Potter novels. Its Grade 1 listed facade has been revamped and the station improved to increase capacity.

Cornwall marks the extreme south-western extent of Brunel's kingdom and the county is surprisingly rich in his works. The Royal Albert Bridge, which crosses the River Tamar, connected the broad gauge network with the Cornwall and West Cornwall railways - both engineered by Brunel - to take the trains coming from Paddington all the way to Penzance via a series of over sixty spectacular timber viaducts. The original viaducts have gone now, either modified or replaced over the years, but in many cases the masonry piers remain like rows of monolithic sentinels. As a result there is much to reward the Brunel hunter, including the branch line to Falmouth and many surviving examples of his railway stations. There are other connections, literally. His Great Eastern steamship was the first vessel to successfully lay a telegraphic cable to connect Europe and the USA - a story told at the historic Porthcurno Telegraph Museum near Land's End. John Christopher, an acknowledged expert on Brunel, takes us on a tour of Cornwall, exploring his works in the county. This is the latest in a series of books which are about rediscovering Brunel's works in your area.

Bournemouth Through Time is a wonderful collection of old and new photographs of Bournemouth. The older images are printed alongside a contemporary full colour photograph, which illustrates the same scene. The contrasting illustrations show how the area has changed and developed during the last 100 years. The photographs illustrate shops, schools, garages, churches, houses and street scenes.As you browse through the photographs, you will notice the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads and the number of residents, how shops and other businesses have evolved and the changes and developments in modes of transportation and the architecture of the area.

With its famous hotel, St Pancras is now the London terminus of the Eurostar, with a high speed rail link to the Kent coast and the Channel Tunnel. But it was not always so. Once nearly redundant and threatened with demolition, the station was the London terminus of the Midland Railway, and could proclaim at its opening the largest single span roof in the world. Over GBP800 million saw St Pancras restored and rebuilt for the modern day. Described now as the 'world's most wonderful railway station', St Pancras is a paragon of Gothic architecture. The St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel utilised large parts of the Midland Grand Hotel and opened in 2011, exactly 138 years after the original was opened. John Christopher tells the story of the rise, decline and rise again of St Pancras as London's international station.

The SS Great Britain Story is a concise account of one of the most famous steamships ever built. The great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel embraced the latest innovations, including an iron hull and a screw-propeller, to create an ocean liner that was decades ahead of its time.

LONDON needed rebuilding after the great fire of 1666. Eighty-eight churches had been destroyed and a grand plan to rebuild them was started by Sir Christopher Wren. In the end, he designed fifty-one new churches and the splendour that is St Paul's Cathedral. Of the fifty-one churches, many have been lost, either to a combination of Victorian indifference, fire, subsidence or German bombs. Twelve Wren City churches survive in their original form, while many of the remaining churches have been rebuilt or substantially altered. Wren left an amazing legacy and John Christopher takes us on a tour of the churches, showing them as built and showing us a comparison scene of today.

Once described as the 'worst tank that ever won the war', the Sherman tank was never going to be the equal of the German heavies in a direct tank-on-tank confrontation. It was never meant to be. What is was, though, was reliable, maneuverable and built in such prodigious quantities that it became ubiquitous. Sheer weight of numbers and interchangeability of parts was what made the Medium Tank M4, as the Sherman was officially designated, a war winner. Built in the States in car factories, railway works and new bespoke factories, the Sherman came in many variants, and was converted for other uses by the Allied forces. The Brits gave it a bigger gun, made 'funnies' that could wade ditches, build bridges, even float in the sea and clear minefields. The Sherman lasted in service into Korea with the Americans and many were sold overseas to Israel, Uganda, India, Paraguay, Argentina and Mexico, with the last coming out of service in 1989 in Chile. John Christopher tells the story of the M4 Sherman, using both new and archive images to show the most famous tank in the world in all its guises and variants.

The HMS Victory story

In the distant future, Harl and Ellen talk about their work and their lives. Their work as scientists is more important to them than love. Harl plans to leave Earth, on a long journey through space. Ellen plans to stay on Earth, to change the way the human mind works. When Harl returns to Earth, the world will be a very different place.

This book comprehensively tells the story behind London's famous red buses.

The history of balloons at war

One of a series of fiction for schools. The moral of this story, set in the 21st century, is that freedom has to be won and kept by the young. It won the "Guardian" Prize for Children's Literature.