David Miller

The combined soccer side of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Pegasus gained a tremendous following in its brief life. The team won the F.A. Amateur Cup in 1951 and 1953 before capacity crowds of 100,000 at Wembley. This autobiographical account, by one of the key players, brings vivid detail to the day-to-day reality of soccer management, team selection, training and modest celebration, together with the practicalities of daily life in the 1950s. Pegasus was the last of the great Amateur football teams and this fascinating, often humorous book, is a fitting tribute to it. This Second Edition features additional photographs and an Afterword by David Miller. Ken Shearwood, now in his late eighties, was an excellent all-round games player, and at soccer a frankly uncompromising centre half. who was to become an integral part of the briefly flowering Pegasus side from Oxford and Cambridge which, remarkably, twice won the Amateur Cup...After Shearwood retired from the game, he [taught] - not without considerable difficulty in the maths area - at Lancing, where he was to stay, as master, housemaster and registrar for the rest of his working life, serving under six headmasters. Pen pictures and anecdotes - shrewd, funny, sparkling, but never unkind - abound, for this is a contented man, happily married for over fifty years. That great Arsenal and England footballer Joe Mercer once introduced Ken Shearwood to Derek Dougan, the Irish International, as the "best centre half in England"; even if he exaggerated, he may not have been too far from the truth. Colin Leach, Times Literary Supplement.

Fighting Men of World War II: Allied Forces is the second part of a two-volume set (Axis Forces is also available) which sets out to examine in detail the weapons and equipment of the average soldier of the United States, Great Britain and its Dominions and Commonwealth, the Soviet Union, and the other nations like France and Poland who fought on despite being overrun in the early stages of the conflict. In these pages we examine a broad range of general equipment that was used every day, including mess tins, water bottles, medical kits, radios, binoculars, goggles, entrenching tools and wire cutters. We give detailed specifications of weapons such as: pistols and revolvers, rifles, bayonets, fighting knives, hand grenades, flamethrowers, mortars and anti-tank weapons. The clothing sections include headgear, from the M1 helmet system to the Tam o’ Shanter and the Russian pilotka. We examine footwear as diverse as polished officers’ shoes, cavalry boots, paratroopers’ jump boots and felt overboots. Uniform tunics, shirts, trousers, and greatcoats all receive attention, as do all-weather gear, gloves, ponchos, camouflage smocks and load-carrying vests. Numerous variations are shown, as are rank badges and other insignia. Personal items too are included. We show cigarettes and lighters, letters and postcards home, magazines, gramophones, identity tags, mending kits and eating utensils. Almost all of the items shown have not been featured in book form before and have been specially chosen from museums and private collections to form a unique reference source for the general reader, budding collector, military enthusiast, re-enactor, and modeller. The fighting man is placed within the context of his unit organization, while carefully researched archive photos show him with his weapons and equipment in action. The text, by seasoned military expert David Miller, is the result of painstaking research, backed up by his own military experience in the British Army, which has given him the necessary credentials to understand what the average fighting man’s needs and day-to-day preoccupations actually were. David has been assisted by editor Graham Smith, and the two of them have pulled together all these diverse elements to form one of the most definitive works of its kind.

Fighting Men of World War II: Axis Forces is the first part of a two-volume set (Allied Forces is also available) which sets out to examine in detail the weapons and equipment of the average soldier of Germany, Japan, Italy, and the other nations like Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, comprised the Axis forces. In these pages we examine a broad range of general equipment that was used every day, including binoculars, goggles, radios, water bottles, fuel cans, medical kits, skis, wire cutters and detonators. We give detailed specifications of weapons such as pistols and revolvers, rifles, bayonets, fighting knives, hand grenades, landmines, flamethrowers, mortars and light artillery. The clothing sections include headgear, from the feathered hats of the Italian Bersaglieri sharpshooters to the redoubtable Stahlheim of the German troops. We examine footwear as diverse as polished officers’ shoes, cavalry boots, paratroopers’ jump boots and Japanese Tabi canvas shoes. Uniform tunics, shirts, trousers and greatcoats all receive attention, as do all-weather gear, gloves, ponchos and shelter sections, such as the German Zeltbahn. Camouflage variations are shown, as are rank badges together with unit badges and medals. Personal items too are included. We show cigarettes and lighters, letters and postcards home, campstools, fans, identity tags, mending kits and eating utensils. Almost all the items shown have not been featured in book form before and have been specially chosen from museums and private collections to form a unique reference source for the general reader, budding collector, military enthusiast, re-enactor, and modeller. The fighting man is placed within the context of his unit organization, while carefully researched archive photos show him with his weapons and equipment in action. The text, by seasoned military expert David Miller, is the result of painstaking research, backed up by his own military experience in the British Army, which has given him the necessary credentials to understand what the average fighting man’s needs and day-to-day preoccupations actually were. David has been assisted by editor Graham Smith, and the two of them have pulled together all these diverse elements to form one of the most definitive works of its kind.

Profound, lyrical, shocking, wise: the short story is capable of almost anything. This collection of 100 of the finest stories ever written ranges from the essential to the unexpected, the traditional to the surreal. Wide in scope, both beautiful and vast, this is the perfect companion for any fiction lover. Here are childhood favourites and neglected masters, twenty-first century wits and national treasures, Man Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates. Featuring an all-star cast of authors, including Kate Atkinson, Julian Barnes, Angela Carter, Anton Chekhov, Richmal Crompton, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl, Penelope Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Ian McEwan, Alice Munro, V.S. Pritchett, Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark and Colm Tóibín, THAT GLIMPSE OF TRUTH is the biggest, most handsome collection of short fiction in print today.