Lady Thatcher''s outstanding accomplishments, the debates she sparked, and her inimitable character, personality and style are captured in this collection of Parliamentary tributes and international comments, with a Foreword and Biographical Sketch by long-time advisor and friend John Blundell and an Introduction by The Rt Hon David Davis MP. These pages provide first-person observations and anecdotes describing vividly the policies of Margaret Thatcher, her life, and her legacy.
Hugo Vickers's Alice is the remarkable story of Princess Andrew of Greece, whose life seemed intertwined with every event of historical importance in twentieth century Europe. "In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long gray dress and a gray cloak, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. Inasmuch as she is remembered at all today, it is as this shadowy figure in gray nun's clothes..." Princess Alice, mother of Prince Phillip, was something of a mystery figure even within her own family. She was born deaf, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of her grandmother, Queen Victoria, and brought up in England, Darmstadt, and Malta. In 1903 she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and from then on her life was overshadowed by wars, revolutions, and enforced periods of exile. By the time she was thirty-five, virtually every point of stability was overthrown. Though the British royal family remained in the ascendant, her German family ceased to be ruling princes, her two aunts who had married Russian royalty had come to savage ends, and soon afterwards Alice's own husband was nearly executed as a political scapegoat. The middle years of her life, which should have followed a conventional and fulfilling path, did the opposite. She suffered from a serious religious crisis and at the age of forty-five was removed from her family and placed in a sanitarium in Switzerland, where she was pronounced a paranoid schizophrenic. As her stay in the clinic became prolonged, there was a time where it seemed she might never walk free again. How she achieved her recovery is just one of the remarkable aspects of her story.
Thomas Sayre came with his family from England to Lynn, Massachusetts in the early 1630's. Among descendants of Thomas were clergymen, surgeons, attorneys, ambassadors, and representatives of almost every profession. Francis B., cowboy, professor of law, and ambassador, was son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson. Zelda was the wife of American novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and subject of one of his books. David A. was silversmith, banker, and founder of Lexington's Sayre School. Many Sayre descendants were taken by wars in service to America and never had the chance to win recognition for their inherent abilities. SAYRE FAMILY another 100-years, in a large part, focuses on the early pioneers who came to or passed through the Onio Valley of West Virginia and Ohio. At least three direct descendants of Thomas had made settlements in that area by the Nineteenth Century. One, David Sayre, came from New Jersey about 1778, and left many descendants who still lived in that area at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century, The bulk of this genealogy covers those, while other Sayre families whose ancestral links were not discovered are also included. The three generations of ancestors above each family block makes tracing easier.
During visits to the First World War battlefields the author often wondered where various Victoria Cross actions took place; he resolved to find out. Research commenced in 1988 and numerous sources have been consulted in the meantime. The book is designed for the battlefield visitor as much as the armchair reader. A detailed account of each VC action is set within the wider strategic and tactical context. Detailed sketch maps show the area today, together with the battle-lines and movements of the combatants. It allows visitors to stand upon the spot, or very close, where the VC actions took place and understand what happened and where. Photographs of the battle sites illustrate the accounts. There is also a comprehensive biography for each recipient covering every aspect of their lives 'warts and all' - parents and siblings, education, civilian employment, military career, wife and children, death and burial/commemoration. There is also a host of other information, much of it published for the first time. Some fascinating characters emerge, with numerous links to many famous people and events.
Although the United States did not enter the First World War until April 1917, Canada enlisted the moment Great Britain engaged in the conflict in August 1914. The Canadian contribution was great, as more than 600,000 men and women served in the war effort—400,000 of them overseas—out of a population of 8 million. More than 150,000 were wounded and nearly 67,000 gave their lives. The war was a pivotal turning point in the history of the modern world, and its mindless slaughter shattered a generation and destroyed seemingly secure values. The literature that the First World War generated, and continues to generate so many years later, is enormous and addresses a multitude of cultural and social matters in the history of Canada and the war itself. Although many scholars have brilliantly analyzed the literature of the war, little has been done to catalog the writings of ordinary participants: men and women who served in the war and wrote about it but are not included among well-known poets, novelists, and memoirists. Indeed, we don’t even know how many titles these people published, nor do we know how many more titles were added later by relatives who considered the recollections or collected letters worthy of publication. Brian Douglas Tennyson’s The Canadian Experience of the Great War: A Guide to Memoirs is the first attempt to identify all of the published accounts of First World War experiences by Canadian veterans.
