Showing results by narrator "Roy" in All Categories

When the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in April 1982, Britain’s immediate response was to send a task force. But behind the pomp and bravado of its departure, a sober reality lurked. A mere 20 Sea Harriers operating from two aircraft carriers would take on the might of the Argentine air force, some 200 planes strong. The MOD estimated that within four days and against such formidable air power, half the harriers would likely be lost. To reinforce that meagre force, and in just three weeks, the Navy formed, trained and equipped a brand new squadron from scratch.

Calming, thought-provoking, poetic and honest, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm is a collection of writing and musing by documentary-maker, environmentalist and author of Waterlog Roger Deakin. For the last six years of his life, Roger Deakin kept notebooks. In them, he wrote his daily thoughts, feelings and observations about and around his Suffolk home, Walnut Tree Farm. Collected here are the very best of these writings, capturing his extraordinary, restless curiosity about nature as well as his impressions of our changing world.

When Churchill's top secret Special Operations Executive needed to destroy the Gestapo HQ in the centre of downtown Copenhagen to prevent a devastating Nazi last stand that might prolong the war for many months, there was only one machine for the job - the Mosquito. This is the story of that legendary aircraft told through that one impossible mission.

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-driving cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

Oliver Ryan is a handsome and charismatic success story. He lives in the suburbs with his wife, Alice, who illustrates his award-winning children's books and gives him her unstinting devotion. Their life together is one of enviable privilege and ease - enviable until, one evening after supper, Oliver attacks Alice and beats her into a coma. In the aftermath, as everyone tries to make sense of his astonishing act of savagery, Oliver tells his story.

On a beautiful summer's day, at a remote lake in the middle of Dartmoor, three members of the Fowler family take a dinghy out onto the water, leaving mother Sarah at the shore. Less than sixty seconds later, she checks to see where they are. The boat is drifting in the middle of the lake. It's empty. Sarah's family have completely vanished.

In Heart, Be at Peace, which can be listened to independently, Donal picks up the twenty-one voices from The Spinning Heart ten years on, in 2019. Small-town Ireland is a different place, the economy having recovered from the economic crash that served as a backdrop to the events in that book. Now the work is back, the dramas have all seemingly died down, the dark days of recession and struggle are over. But a new menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, old grudges are festering and new ones are rising, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered.

In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership.

For over a decade between 1974 and 1985, lugubrious funnyman Les Dawson had radio audiences in stitches with his hit comedy show Listen to Les. Included in this collection are 26 vintage episodes, showcasing the gravel-voiced master of mirth at his very best. All your favourite characters are here, including gossip-loving housewives Cissie and Ada; chat show host Cosmo Smallpiece; the elegant Sophisticates and the hilariously dismal Desponds—as well as Wotan, Man of Steel; the debut appearance of comic discovery Justin Jest.

Frankie is not happy. Not only is she stuck at Grandad's for a whole week while her parents swan off to the Arctic, now she's discovered that there's NO WIFI anywhere in the house! Also in the house are: Joel - Frankie's annoying nerd brother who spend all his times playing computer games like Elf-Quest and just generally being really super annoying. Grandad - likes gardening down the allotment and cups of tea. Oh, and is also the custodian of a secret fantasy realm called Parallelia.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love Is Blind by William Boyd. Love Is Blind is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum.

Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear disaster. In the 30 years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers not only its own citizens but all of humanity.

In early 1461, a teenage boy won a battle on a freezing morning in the Welsh marches and claimed the crown of England. He was Edward IV, first king of the usurping house of York. The country, crippled by economic crisis, insurgency, and a corrupt and bankrupt government, was in need of a new hero. Charismatic, able and ruthlessly ambitious, Edward and his two younger brothers, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became the figureheads of a spectacular ruling dynasty which laid the foundations for a renewal of English royal power.

Featuring the hilarious exploits of the bumbling bureaucrats of the General Assistance Department, the show starred Wilfrid Hyde-White and later Deryck Guyler as the hapless ‘Number One’, with Richard Murdoch as his hare-brained sidekick ‘Number Two’. Together, they muddled their way through Whitehall, creating chaos with their mix-ups, misunderstandings and mismanagement – to the consternation of their boss, the self-serving Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Gregory Pitkin (Roy Dotrice and Ronald Baddiley).

Billy and his best friends Anna, Jimmy and Andy are looking forward to a summer exploring Waterfall Woods, discovering more about the magical creatures who live there and the Rhythm of nature that keeps their world, and ours, in balance. Then the woods come under attack from a mysterious red lady, forcing the sprites and brothers Wilfred and BiIfred into hiding, and the gang rush to the rescue! But what does the red lady really want? Could she be connected to Bilfred’s disappearance all those years ago? And, if so, how is it possible she looks exactly the same decades later. . .

No conflict better encapsulates all that went wrong on the Western Front than the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The tragic loss of life and stoic endurance by troops who walked towards their death is an iconic image which will be hard to ignore during the centennial year. Despite this, this book shows the extent to which the Allied armies were in fact able repeatedly to break through the German front lines.

When an Oxford student accuses one of the university's professors of sexual assault, DI Adam Fawley's team think they've heard it all before. But they couldn't be more wrong. Because this time, the predator is a woman and the shining star of the department, and the student, a six-foot male rugby player. Soon DI Fawley and his team are up against the clock to figure out the truth. What they don't realise is that someone is watching.

As one of just a few judges licensed to try murder cases at the Old Bailey, the author has presided over many of the high-profile cases that all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines—for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room. Peeling apart six dramatic murder and manslaughter cases, Unlawful Killings removes this distinction between 'them' and 'us'.

In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland's glaciers to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea caves, this is a deep-time voyage into the planet's past and future.

In 1980, a UFO was tracked on military radar in Rendlesham Forest, England. It landed near two of the most strategically important military bases in NATO, and was approached by military witnesses who touched the hull. This explosive new book tells the full story of this incident, which is set to become better-known than Roswell.