Book reviews

SAVING THE WALL: THE CONSERVATION OF HADRIAN’S WALL, 1746-1987, by Stephen Leach and Alan Whitworth. Published by Amberley Publishing, The Hill, Stroud, Glos GL5 4EP (www.amberley-books.com). £12.99. Softback.

IN Part One of this book the authors pay tribute to the people who played a vital role in saving Hadrian’s Wall _ conservationists such as John Clayton, who bought farmland to protect Roman sites in the central sector of the Wall ...


MAKE IT EASY – Delicious Get-Ahead Recipes For Happy Home Cooking, by Jane Lovett. New Holland Publishers, London. www.newhollandpublishers.com. £19.99. Hardback.

Written by The Northumbrian magazine’s regular cookery writer, this book contains a collection of delicious, easy recipes that can be prepared in advance to make cooking for friends and family a stress-free and fun experience. ...


NORTHERN NORTHUMBERLAND’S MINOR RAILWAYS. VOLUME 2: COLLIERY AND ASSOCIATED LINES and VOLUME 3: SANDSTONE, WHINSTONE AND GRAVEL LINES, by Roger Jermy. Both published by the Oakwood Press, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1YS. £10.95 each. Softbacks.

VOLUME 2 concentrates on lines serving collieries to the south and south-west of Berwick, small collieries associated with the lime industry at Seahouses, Beadnell and the Ancroft area, the commercial collieries at Shilbottle, ...


NORTH EAST INDUSTRIES THROUGH TIME, by Stafford M. Linsley. Published by Amberley Publishing, The Hill, Stroud, Glos GL5 4EP (www.amberley-books.com). £14.99. Softback.

THIS fascinating section of photographs traces the many ways in which industries of the region have changed and developed over the last century. Dealing first with coal and coal products, the author, who was born to a coal-mining ...


AS THEY REALLY WERE: THE CITIZENS OF ALNWICK, 1831, by Keith Middlemas. Published by Frances Lincoln, London NW5 2RZ (www.franceslincoln.com). £25. Hardback.

IN the same year as the first-ever census, 1831, talented Alnwick-born artist Percy Forster recorded over 100 portrait sketches of his fellow citizens. Collected in a battered folio volume, they were found 30 years ago in the offices ...


IN SILENT FORTITUDE: IN MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THE NORTH TYNE VALLEY WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR, by Alan Isaac Grint. Published by Ergo Press, St Mary’s Chare, Hexham NE46 1NQ. £9.99. Softback.

THE result of three years’ research by the author, this book mentions every man named on the many war memorials to be found in churches, cemeteries and village greens in the North Tyne Valley and contains many previously unseen ...


CALENDAR PIGS, by Georgina Jack. Published by Book Guild Publishing, New Road, Brighton BN1 1UF (email: orders@orcabookservices.co.uk). £17.99. Hardback.

THIS touching, funny and heart-warming story about eight-year-old Emma, a wartime evacuee who is whisked off to a remote Northumberland farm, is based on the author’s own experience as a child. Emma shadows her roguish but kindly ...


BIG SKIES & BARBARIANS. A ‘What’s Special About Northumberland’audio guide, with John Grundy (www.whatsspecialabout.com) £14.99 (+£0.61 p&p) (see reader offers)

This third CD in the series comes with a foldout route map and offers an entertaining guided tour that starts in Corbridge and ends in Bellingham, a journey of some 70 miles largely on quiet minor roads in the North Tyne valley ...


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