{"title":"Books by Charlie Connelly","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781474607926","title":"The Channel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A wonderfully quirky history' SUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'The perfect read while you wait for your summer holiday to begin' MAIL ON SUNDAY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Quippy anecdotes are woven with historical reference and geographical context to give full colour' IRISH TIMES\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bulwark against invasion, a conduit for exchange and a challenge to be conquered, the English Channel - 21 miles wide at its narrowest point - represents much more than a conductor of goods and people. Criss-crossing the Channel, Charlie Connelly collects its stories and brings them vividly to life, from tailing Oscar Wilde's shadow through the dark streets of Dieppe to unearthing Britain's first beauty pageant at the end of Folkestone pier. We learn that Louis Bleriot was actually a terrible pilot, the tragic fate of the first successful Channel swimmer, and that if a man with a buttered head and pigs' bladders attached to his trousers hadn't fought off an attack by dogfish we might never have had a Channel Tunnel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCharlie Connelly uncovers remarkable tales of swimmers and flyers, pirates and soldiers, heroes and villains, pioneers and refugees. Their stories are all united by the English Channel to ensure the sea that makes us an island will never be the same again.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43599500116146,"sku":"9781474607926","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781474607926_d7de666d-03da-4169-9390-525810ae70c1.jpg?v=1786020690"},{"product_id":"9780349123738","title":"Bring Me Sunshine","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe talk about the weather \u003ci\u003ea lot\u003c\/i\u003e. It exasperates, confounds and on occasion delights us. Our national conversation is dominated by the weather, but how much do we really know about it? In \u003ci\u003eBring Me Sunshine, \u003c\/i\u003eCharlie Connelly sets off on the trail of our island obsession. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe breezes through the lives of meteorological eccentrics, geniuses, rainmakers and cloud-busters and brings vividly to life great weather events from history. He sheds light on Britain's weirdest wind, why we have the wettest place in England to thank for the trusty pencil, the debt that umbrella owners owe to Robinson Crusoe and why people once thought firing cannons at clouds was a great idea. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving adventured round the shipping forecast areas for his bestselling \u003ci\u003eAttention All Shipping\u003c\/i\u003e, Connelly is the perfect guide through a mélange of gales, blizzards, mists, heatwaves and the occasional shower of fish. By turns informative, entertaining and hilarious, \u003ci\u003eBring Me Sunshine\u003c\/i\u003e answers all your weather questions as well as helping you to distinguish your graupel from your petrichor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286100652405,"sku":"9780349123738","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349123738_ca989985-f630-4f96-9b35-63cac6a2194b.jpg?v=1786014006"},{"product_id":"9780349120881","title":"And Did Those Feet","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe landscape of the British Isles is filled with history, much of which we miss as it flashes past the car window. Do we even realise that we're following the same path as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, or that we're driving past the exact spot where King Harold was killed, shot through the eye with an arrow? As a lover of both history and the British countryside, Charlie Connelly decided to rectify this, and set out on a series of walks that recreate famous historical journeys. En route he retells the story of the original trip while discovering who and what now inhabit these iconic routes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWalking in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Charlie journeys alongside Boudicca's ghost in Norfolk, relives Bonnie Prince Charlie's flight to Skye disguised as Flora MacDonald's maid and takes the same 32-mile round trip as the starving Louisburgh famine walkers. He suffers broken toes, becomes trapped in the Scottish Parliament and encounters dead poets and a surprisingly high number of mad old women in woolly hats. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold with Charlie's customary charm and wit, And Did Those Feet will reveal the historical secrets hidden in the much-loved coastal, country and urban landscapes of Britain.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286847271285,"sku":"9780349120881","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349120881_ee372b12-1d7a-4ce2-a8c3-8991297059fb.jpg?v=1786013940"},{"product_id":"9781408890004","title":"Last Train to Hilversum","description":"\u003cp\u003eDespite the all-pervading influence of television ninety per cent of people in Britain still listen to the radio, clocking up over a billion hours of listening between us every week. It’s a background to all our lives: we wake up to our clock radios, we have the radio on in the kitchen as we make the tea, it’s on at our workplaces and in our cars. From \u003ci\u003eListen With Mother\u003c\/i\u003e to the illicit thrill of tuning into pirate stations like Radio Caroline; from receiving a musical education from John Peel or having our imagination unlocked by Douglas Adams’ \u003ci\u003eThe Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy\u003c\/i\u003e; from school-free summers played out against a soundtrack of Radio One and \u003ci\u003eTest Match Special\u003c\/i\u003e to more grown-up soundtracks of the \u003ci\u003eToday \u003c\/i\u003eprogramme on Radio 4 and the solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast – in many ways, our lives can be measured in kilohertz.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet radio is changing because the way we listen to the radio is changing. Last year the number of digital listeners at home exceeded the number of analogue listeners for the first time, meaning the pop and crackle and the age of stumbling upon something by chance is coming to an end. There will soon be no dial to turn, no in-between spaces on the waveband for washes of static, mysterious beeps and faint, distant voices. The mystery will be gone: we’ll always know exactly what it is we’re listening to, whether it’s via scrolling LCD on our digital radios, the box at the bottom of our TV screen or because we’ve gone in search of a particular streaming station. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd so, as the world of analogue listening fades, Charlie Connelly takes stock of the history of radio and its place in our lives as one of the very few genuinely shared national experiences. He explores its geniuses, crackpots and charlatans who got us to where we are today, and remembers its voices, personalities and programmes that helped to form who we are as individuals and as a nation. He visits the key radio locations from history, and looks at its vital role over the past century on both national and local levels. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePart nostalgic eulogy, part social history, part travelogue, \u003ci\u003eLast Train To Hilversum\u003c\/i\u003e is Connelly’s love letter to radio, exploring our relationship with the medium from its earliest days to the present in an attempt to recreate and revisit the world he entered on his childhood evenings on the dial as he set out on the radio journey of a lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298892329333,"sku":"9781408890004","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408890004_5047a772-a296-470f-a5ae-030303b89ee0.jpg?v=1786019434"},{"product_id":"9780349146270","title":"Attention All Shipping","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe hilarious bestselling travel book that journeys round areas made famous by Radio 4's Shipping Forecast\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of those simple yet brilliant ideas' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Engaging and often very funny' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A wonderfully eccentric study' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Shipping Forecast is a curious piece of broadcasting; at once impenetrably baffling yet at the same time reassuringly familiar, most of us have grown up with this sonorous gazetteer firmly planted in our subconscious. But where are these places, and what secrets do they conceal? Charlie Connelly sets off on a journey round the forecast to find out, unearthing the history and culture behind one of Britain's best-loved broadcasting institutions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore than simply a hilarious travel book, \u003ci\u003eAttention All Shipping\u003c\/i\u003e ensures that the evocative stanzas of the shipping forecast will remain a mystery no more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311712907637,"sku":"9780349146270","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349146270_75b2bc63-ef76-4cc0-b712-e3f4a1bc30c2.jpg?v=1786013645"},{"product_id":"making-tracks-1","title":"Making Tracks","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne spring day in 1927, by a road near the River Dart, a passer-by noticed a tin cup hanging from a stick. Inside was a handwritten poem commemorating Weary Rosser - a former soldier turned tramp, crowned by his peers as 'King of the Dossers'. That fragile roadside memorial opens the door to a Britain we rarely see: a country shaped not only by those who settled, but by those who never stopped moving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMaking Tracks\u003c\/i\u003e, bestselling author Charlie Connelly uncovers the hidden, itinerant history of Britain, bringing to life the people who lived on its roads, waterways and margins. Tramps and drovers, pilgrims and pedlars, showpeople and canal families, herring lassies and Roma communities emerge from the shadows to reveal a nation built in motion. Their footsteps became tracks and roads; their labour underpinned economies; their cultures left marks still etched into the landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is history discovered by walking it. Cattle drovers’ routes still wind across hills and fields, their presence lingering in inns, place names and overnight pastures. Canals tell stories of whole families living in narrowboats, hauling cargo through an engineering marvel carved by navvies. Fairgrounds and market squares echo with the lives of travelling entertainers, whose precarious existence combined hardship, ingenuity and spectacle. On the coasts, the herring lassies arrive in their thousands, spilling from trains each autumn to gut fish from dawn to dusk with astonishing speed and stamina. Once famous across Britain, their annual migration - and the industry that sustained it - has almost vanished from memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThreaded through these journeys is the elusive figure of Weary Rosser himself, glimpsed in records but fully alive in the affection shown by those who remembered him. His story reflects a wider truth: Britain has always contained a community within a community, bound by movement, mutual care and survival. Seen this way, the map of Britain becomes fluid rather than fixed — a living record of centuries of wandering, work, faith and curiosity, still waiting to be followed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57647713485173,"sku":"9781035918294","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781035918294.jpg?v=1793052481"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-charlie-connelly.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}