Wormwood Scrubs is Britain's most ‘media-soaked' prison. Its celebrity inmates have provided the tabloids with many good stories, from Rolling Stone Keith Richards - banged up for drugs offences - to notorious spy George Blake, whose escape enthralled the country. It has entertained the Master of the Queen’s music, Sir Michael Tippett, socialist scrapper Fred Copeman, rebellious soul Pete Doherty, influential writer Joe Orton, lifetime litigant Lord Alfred Douglas, fraudster John Stonehouse and professional con Charles Bronson. In this book, you’ll read about the forgotten, as well as the famous; the plain as well as the extraordinary. It is an enthralling gallery of rogues, liars, spies, mountebanks, lovers of courtroom strife and general, all-round villains who did anything to get rich.

Wormwood Scrubs is Britain's most ‘media-soaked' prison. Its celebrity inmates have provided the tabloids with many good stories, from Rolling Stone Keith Richards - banged up for drugs offences - to notorious spy George Blake, whose escape enthralled the country. It has entertained the Master of the Queen’s music, Sir Michael Tippett, socialist scrapper Fred Copeman, rebellious soul Pete Doherty, influential writer Joe Orton, lifetime litigant Lord Alfred Douglas, fraudster John Stonehouse and professional con Charles Bronson. In this book, you’ll read about the forgotten, as well as the famous; the plain as well as the extraordinary. It is an enthralling gallery of rogues, liars, spies, mountebanks, lovers of courtroom strife and general, all-round villains who did anything to get rich.

"No one knows what really goes on inside a prison unless they are invited through its iron doors. Even then it is difficult to find out much. This book opens up this secret, extraordinary world as never before - at a time when the prison is on a knife-edge." Wormwood Scrubs is Britain's most famous prison and has had its full share of celebrity inmates. From her unique position as Chairman of the Independent Monitoring Board, the prison's watchdog body, Angela Levin opens up this secret world as never before. With keys to all parts of the prison and access to its inmates, officers and governors she witnesses at first hand the lives of the prisoners including the mentally ill, the addicts, foreign nationals and recidivists who cannot cope in the outside world. She has listened to the concerns and fears of the prison officers at a time when violence against them is increasing and the prison is struggling to cope with massive staff cuts. She highlights the faults in the system and recommends some essential reforms. It is an important and revelatory book that will shock, disgust and amaze all who read it.

A pale ray of sunlight seeps through a dusty stained glass window to light a shabby congregation - all kneeling, eyes closed in devout prayer: “Thank you, Lord. Thank you for saving us.” The scene is a Fleet Street pub at lunchtime - and, as yet, hardly a drop's been touched. I stand up, cross myself, dust the knees of my corduroy trousers and reach to take a grateful sip of my pint of London Pride. All around me my fellow workers are rising from their knees: men - and a few women - all known to the world as penny liars, scribbling scum, foot-in-the-door merchants, callous bastards, and reptiles. The massed hacks of the News of the World. We are celebrating a crucial moment. Just ended is a long, bitter financial war. It has been the saving of the world's best-selling Sunday paper from the grasping hands of the monster - Robert Maxwell. And our unlikely saviour? A newcomer to the Fleet Street jungle, a raw young hayseed from the Australian outback - Rupert Murdoch. In this lively memoir, John Bull lifts the lid on what it was really like to work on the ‘News of the Screws’ in its heyday, producing what the staid British Establishment called a ‘torrent of filth’ every Sunday - and selling four million copies a week.

An “utterly brilliant” and deeply researched guide to the sights, smells, endless wonders, and profound changes of nineteenth century British history (Books Monthly, UK). Step into the past and experience the world of Victorian England, from clothing to cuisine, toilet arrangements to transport—and everything in between. A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England is “a brilliant guided tour of Charles Dickens’s and other eminent Victorian Englishmen’s England, with insights into where and where not to go, what type of people you’re likely to meet, and what sights and sounds to watch out for . . . Utterly brilliant!” (Books Monthly, UK). Like going back in time, Higgs’s book shows armchair travelers how to find the best seat on an omnibus, fasten a corset, deal with unwanted insects and vermin, get in and out of a vehicle while wearing a crinoline, and avoid catching an infectious disease. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book blends accurate historical details with compelling stories to bring alive the fascinating details of Victorian daily life. It is a must-read for seasoned social history fans, costume drama lovers, history students, and anyone with an interest in the nineteenth century.

“Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait”—The Wall Street Journal For fans of John le Carré and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War’s most notorious spies “Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he?” —John le Carré Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake’s. After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War II, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero’s welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations—including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history—only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind. Much of Blake’s career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy’s death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER As seen on This Morning Back in the day, I was Governor of Security and Operations for HMP Wormwood Scrubs. If you're easily shocked or offended, you best look away now...

The local prisons of the latter half of the nineteenth century refined systems of punishment so harsh that one judge considered the maximum penalty of two years local imprisonment to be the most severe punishment known to English law: "next only to death". This work examines how private perceptions and concerns became public policy. It also traces the move in English government from the rural and aristocratic to the urban and more democratic. It follows the rise of the powerful elite of the higher civil service, describes some of the forces that attempted to oppose it, and provides a window through which to view the process of state formation.

From presidents to royalty, war torn regions to stunning scenery, the camera of John Jochimsen has captured it all. Perhaps the last person left alive today who was with Queen Elizabeth the day she became queen, John is one of the last remaining old school photojournalists. Eighty Years gone in a Flash traces the remarkable story in his own words, and with his own incredible pictures. From life at The News of the World to the jungles of Malaya, John provides an honest, witty and touching account of a colourful career spanning more than five decades.