Showing results for "Love!" in Great Britain

Wallis in Love brings a fascinating new perspective on the 20th century's most controversial royal scandal. Andrew Morton's impeccable research and unerring skill for riveting storytelling combine to present a strong case for a new and startling reveal: that the woman who rocked the world with her uncompromising passion for the Prince of Wales may have fooled everyone by keeping the object of her true passion hidden away....

In summer 1939, war was brewing. Eileen Alexander was a bright young graduate just leaving Cambridge and newly smitten with Gershon Ellenbogen, a fellow student who had inadvertently involved her in a car crash. Her first letter to him, written from the hospital, sparked a correspondence that would last the length of the war and define the love of their lifetimes. Love in the Blitz is a remarkable portrait of one woman’s coming-of-age. Her previously undiscovered letters are vivid, intimate and crackling with intelligence.

The dramas of courtly love have captivated centuries of readers and dreamers. Yet too often they’re dismissed as something existing only in books and song - those old legends of King Arthur and chivalric fantasy. Not so. In this groundbreaking history, Sarah Gristwood reveals the way courtly love made and marred the Tudor dynasty.

A major figure behind his nephew Philip's marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the royal family taking the Mountbatten name, Dickie Mountbatten's career included being Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War Two and the last Viceroy of India. Once the richest woman in Britain and a playgirl who enjoyed numerous affairs, Edwina Mountbatten emerged from World War Two as a magnetic and talented charity worker loved around the world.

For over a hundred years until it closed in 1981, Henry Tate’s flagship sugar refinery at Love Lane dominated the Liverpool skyline - and was the beating heart of the local community. More than 10,000 workers passed through the doors of the factory during its lifetime, with some families counting four or even five generations of service. Young women leaving school in the post-war years were drawn by the good wages and the unrivalled social life that Tate & Lyle offered.

The newly-wed Anne Hastings faced her husband's wrath when her affair with William Compton was made public. Mary Tudor married to satisfy her brother's political need to ally with France, but when her decrepit royal husband died, she married the dashing Charles Brandon for love. William Parr, humiliated by his wife's extramarital affair, sought a divorce to marry the woman he loved.

John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to survey the northern approach to the summit of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers - W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender - achieved literary fame, they vied for a place on an expedition that would finally conquer Everest, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain’s efforts to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: in the summer of 1938 both men fell in love with a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine each man’s wartime loyalties.

This is a story of the most well documented, most commented on love affair of our times. Yet the personalities behind the facade remain elusive and the nature of their relationship is an enigma. This is the first major biography of Charles and Camilla, two people who have battled against the curious lot that fate has thrown their way. Gyles Brandreth returns to the same ground as his last book, the bestselling "Philip and Elizabeth"; "Portrait of a Marriage".

She was peaches-and-cream innocence; he was a handsome war hero. Both had royal blood coursing through their veins. The marriage of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt Philip Mountbatten in November 1947 is remembered as the beginning of an extraordinary lifelong union but success was not guaranteed. Elizabeth and Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy plunges us back into 1940s Britain where a teenage Princess fell in love with a foreign Prince.

1657. The youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, 18-year-old Frances is finding her place at England's new centre of power. Following the turmoil of Civil War, a fragile sense of stability has returned to the country. Her father has risen to the unprecedented position of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and Frances has found herself transported from her humble childhood home to the sumptuous palaces of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where she dreams of romance.

The official companion to the BBC's hit magazine show, The One Show Book is a compilation of the quirkiest, strangest, most random and most fascinating stories pulled from the brains of Icon Films' The One Show research desk. Did you know that Michael Jackson was once made an honorary director of Exeter City football team? Or that Muhammad Ali owed a chunk of his fortune to his love of Ovaltine?

What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the center of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate people today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts as well as novels of the period.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.

Taking us behind drawing room doors and into high society ballrooms, The Game of Hearts follows six leading ladies and their family, friends, and contemporaries as they move from matchmaking to matrimony and beyond. Candid insights into the competitive world of the marriage mart; real stories of rakish husbands and rich heiresses; and true tales of lost and long-lasting love, reveal not just Regency courtship customs, but truly captivating lives. Author Felicity Day pieces together a rich and intimate view of this most beloved period of British history.

Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and finds a spirited community full of courage, charisma and good humour, hungry to tell its past - of nightlife, resistance, political fights, loss, gossip, sex, romance and vulgarity. Through their conversations he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain, narratives frequently cleaved as distinct and unrelated. Tracing these men's journeys and arrivals to South London through the seventies, eighties and nineties from the present day, Okundaye relays their stories with rare compassion.

This is the almost-forgotten story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mostly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican Priest with a flare for the dramatic, and the founder of the Agapemone, or 'Abode of Love'. He also claimed to be the immortal conduit of The Holy Spirit and purportedly engaged in free love and ceremonial sex with his mostly female followers. But Prince's eventual death didn't mark the end of this strange set... he was promptly replaced by another.

What happened after the Queen married her handsome prince? Did they live happily ever after, or did their marriage, like so many royal marriages past and present, fizzle into a loveless bond of duty? Victoria and Albert were the royal couple that broke the mould - it may have been an arranged match, yet their union was a passionate, tempestuous relationship between two extremely strong-willed individuals.

Historian and broadcaster Tessa Dunlop tells the story of the women of Bletchley Park through exclusive and unprecedented access to the women themselves. The Bletchley Girls weaves together the lives of 15 women who were all selected to work in Britain's most secret organisation - Bletchley Park. It is their story, told in their voices; Tessa met and talked to 15 veterans, often visiting them several times. Firm friendships were made as their epic journey unfolded on paper.

For seventy years, Queen Elizabeth ruled over an institution and a family. During her lifetime she was constant in her desire to provide a steady presence and to be a trustworthy steward of the British people and the Commonwealth. But times change. Recent years have brought grief and turmoil to the House of Windsor. In The New Royals, journalist Katie Nicholl provides a nuanced look at Elizabeth’s remarkable and unrivalled reign, with new stories from Palace courtiers and aides, documentarians, and family members.

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End Factories. On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates, Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair, scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe and strode through. She was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes …