This book tells the unique story of the first ever school specialising in educating partially sighted children in Britain, The Derby School for the Partially Sighted, Fulwood, Preston. From testimony of ex-pupils, the author describes how this fledgling school struggled to meet the challenges of a new concept in education. Teachers having to adapt from instructing the blind to implementing the revolutionary new methods in educating the visually impaired. The author describes a time when it was thought acceptable to categorise and segregate disabled children, taking them away from family and all that was familiar to give them "a better chance in life" at a boarding school similar to the Victorian institution from which it was born. The author describes the pioneering work of Ken Bridge and his staff to keep this small school at the cutting edge, always searching for new forms of investment and later, when attitudes changed towards more integration, how the school fought to remain open – taking the campaign to Downing Street and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. With the battle lost and the gates finally closed, the author describes the continued camaraderie and fellowship of the ex-staff and students brought together through adversity and determined to keep the spirit of this unique, pioneering little school alive.

Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, an exquisite tale of romance and rivalry, gambling and greed, from one of England’s finest writers As the shadows lengthen over the June grass, all England is heading for Epsom Down—high life and low life, society beauties and Whitechapel street girls, bookmakers and gypsies, hawkers and thieves. Hopes are high, nerves are taut, hats are tossed in the air—this is Derby Day. For months people have been waiting and plotting for this day. Everyone’s eyes are on champion horse Tiberius, on whose performance half a dozen destinies depend. In this rich and exuberant novel, rife with the idioms of Victorian England, the mysteries pile high, propelling us toward the day of the great race, and we wait with bated breath as the story gallops to a finish that no one expects.

This is a look at all the derby matches, tracing the history of the hostility and showing the story from both sides—United and City. Attention is paid not just to the famous derbies, like Liverpool versus Everton, but to less-publicized confrontations such as Exeter versus Plymouth.

From the New York Times–bestselling “master of crime fiction and equine thrills,” a jockey turned investigator tackles crime in the horse racing world (Newsday). Dick Francis, Edgar Award–winning master of mystery and suspense, takes you into the thrilling world of horse racing. A hard fall took hotshot jockey Sid Halley out of the horse racing game, leaving him with a crippled hand, a broken heart, and the desperate need for a new job. Now he’s landed a position with a detective agency, only to catch a bullet from some common thug. And things are about to get even more hectic. The agency is giving him a case to handle on his own. The case brings him to the door of Zanna Martin, a woman who might be just what Sid needs to get him back up and running. But he’s up against a field of thoroughbred criminals, and the odds against him are making it a long shot that he’ll even survive . . . “Dick Francis is a wonder.” —The Plain Dealer “An imaginative craftsman of high order.” —The Sunday Times “Few things are more convincing than Dick Francis at a full gallop.” —Chicago Tribune “Few match Francis for dangerous flights of fancy and pure inventive menace.” —Boston Herald “[The] master of crime fiction and equine thrills.” —Newsday “[Francis] has the uncanny ability to turn out simply plotted yet charmingly addictive mysteries.” —The Wall Street Journal “Francis is a genius.” —Los Angeles Times “A rare and magical talent . . . who never writes the same story twice.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune

On the first Saturday in May every year in Louisville, Kentucky, shortly after 5:30 PM, a new horse attains racing immortality. The Kentucky Derby is like no other race, and its winners are the finest horses in the world. Covered in rich red roses, surrounded by flashing cameras and admiring crowds, these instant celebrities bear names like Citation, Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, and Seattle Slew. They're worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in 1992, a funny thing happened on the way to the roses. The rattling roar of 130,000 voices tailed off into a high, hollow shriek as the horses crossed the finish line. Lil E. Tee? ABC broadcasters knew nothing about him, but they weren't alone. Who knew about Lil E. Tee? A blacksmith in Ocala, Florida, a veterinary surgeon in Ringoes, New Jersey, a trainer a Calder Race Course, and a few other people used to dealing with average horses knew this horse—and realized what a long shot Lil E. Tee really was. On a Pennsylvania farm that raised mostly trotting horses, a colt with a dime-store pedigree was born in 1989. His odd gait and tendency to bellow for his mother earned him the nickname "E.T." Suffering from an immune deficiency and a bad case of colic, he survived surgery that usually ends a horse's racing career. Bloodstock agents dismissed him because of his mediocre breeding, and once he was sold for only $3,000. He'd live in five barns in seven states by the time he turned two. Somehow, this horse became one of the biggest underdogs to appear on the American sporting landscape. Lil E. Tee overcame his bleak beginnings to reach the respected hands of trainer Lynn Whiting, jockey Pat Day, and owner Cal Partee. After winning the Jim Beam stakes and finishing second in the Arkansas Derby, Lil E. Tee arrived at Churchill Downs to face a field of seventeen horses, including the highly acclaimed favorite, Arazi, a horse many people forecast to become the next Secretariat. A 17-to-1 longshot, Lil E. Tee won the Derby with a classic rally down the home stretch, and finally Pat Day had jockeyed a horse to Derby victory. John Eisenberg draws on more than fifteen years of sports writing experience and a hundred interviews throughout Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Florida, and Arkansas to tell the story almost nobody knew in 1992. Eisenberg is a sports columnist for the Baltimore Sun and has won more than twenty awards for his sports writing, including several Associated Press sports editors' first places."

William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was the greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth. His panoramas of nineteenth-century life broke new ground in their depiction of the diverse London crowd, and they are now icons of their age. Frith’s popularity in his lifetime was unprecedented; on six separate occasions special railings had to be built at the Royal Academy to protect his paintings from an admiring public. Derby Day and The Railway Station are nearly as well known today as a century ago, yet the artist who painted them is now neglected. This book explores Frith's place in the development of Victorian painting: the impact of his unconventional private life on his work, his relationships with Hogarth and Dickens, his influence on popular illustration, the place of costume in his paintings, his female models, his painting materials and practice, and much more. The book makes an important contribution to the literature on art in the Victorian era and to our understanding of the nineteenth century.