Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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Jack Sheffield

As the 1982 school year begins, Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley village school for his sixth year as headteacher. Nora Pratt celebrates twenty-five years in her coffee shop, Ronnie Smith finally tries to get a job, and little Krystal Entwhistle causes concern in the school Nativity play. It's the time of ET and Greenham Common,. Price William's birth, Fame legwarmers and the puzzling introduction of the 20p piece. Meanwhile, for Jack, the biggest surprise of his life is in store...

Educating Jack

Dan Waddell

As ‘the voice of darts’, the inimitable Sid Waddell helped transform it from an unfashionable pub game to a massively successful international sport. His uninhibited enthusiasm, classical allusions and memorable one-liners endeared him to millions. His son Dan Waddell grew up in this smoky, boozy world and witnessed Sid’s turbulent journey from failed novelist and struggling TV producer to much-loved television personality. 
 
We Had Some Laughs is Dan’s warm, moving and funny account of Sid’s colourful life and career and a son’s memories of an unconventional dad. It is also a celebration of a way of life and a story of loss – of people, places and times now gone or changed for ever. But, most of all, it’s a story about fathers and sons, and the unshakeable bond between them.

We Had Some Laughs

It’s 1985, and as Jack returns for another year as headteacher at Ragley village school, some changes are in store. 
 
It’s the year of Halley’s Comet, Band Aid, Trivial Pursuit, Dynasty shoulder pads, Roland Rat and Microsoft Windows. And at Ragley-on-the-Forest, Heathcliffe Earnshaw decides to enter the village scarecrow competition, Ruby the caretaker finds romance, and retirement looms for Vera the secretary. 
 
Meanwhile, Jack has to battle with some rising stars of the teaching profession to save his job and his school . . . 
 
Readers love Jack Sheffield: 
'Wry observation and heartwarming humour in equal measure' Alan Titchmarsh 
'Overflowing with amusing anecdotes' Daily Express 
'Amusing adventures at the North Yorkshire village school' Choice 
'Jack Sheffield's in a class of his own' York Press

Star Teacher

It's 1979: Dallas is enthralling the nation on TV, Mrs Thatcher has just become prime minister, Abba is top of the pops, and in the small Yorkshire village of Ragley-on-the-Forest, Jack Sheffield returns for his third year as headmaster of the village school. 
 
Jack and his staff struggle to keep a semblance of normality throughout the turbulence of the school terms, as once again the official School Log fails to record what is really going on beneath the seemingly quiet routine. Ruby the caretaker discovers her Prince Charming; Vera the school secretary gets to meet her hero, Nicholas Parsons; and Jack, to his astonishment, finds himself having to stand in as a curiously skinny Father Christmas. 
 
Jack also finds himself, at last, having to choose between the vivacious sisters Beth and Laura Henderson ... 
 
Praise for Jack Sheffield 
'Wry observation and heartwarming humour in equal measure' Alan Titchmarsh 
'Overflowing with amusing anecdotes' Daily Express 
'Amusing adventures at the North Yorkshire village school' Choice 
'Jack Sheffield's in a class of his own' York Press

Dear Teacher

____________________________________________________________ 
Ragley, 1952. 
 
Lily has just arrived, ready to begin her first year as a teacher at the village school. There to welcome her is John Pruett, who, after his years in the war, has settled into the role of headmaster. Tom, the local bobby, is also on hand to make her feel at home up north. But Lily has a secret lurking in her past that threatens the new life she’s trying to build. 
 
Can she move forward and begin to love again? 
 
In his new novel, Jack Sheffield invites you to travel back in time. Back to the days when owning 
a television made you the envy of the neighbours, Woolworth’s still had pride of place on the 
high street and the village panto was the height of entertainment.

Starting Over

BBC2's Eggheads - now in its seventh series - is one of the most successful quiz shows on television. Day after day, brilliant teams from across the nation try their luck against the seemingly invincible Eggheads - Kevin Ashman (World Quiz Champion), Judith Keppel (first Millionaire winner), Chris Hughes (International Mastermind champion), Daphne Fowler (current Brain of Britain) and CJ de Mooi (multiple quiz show winner). 
 
Packed full of gruelling questions set by the individual Eggheads to test you on their specialist subjects as well as your general knowledge, The Eggheads Quiz Book gives you a chance to see if you are a worthy opponent. Can anyone beat the Eggheads?

The Eggheads Quizbook 2007 edition

The year is 1969 and Jack Sheffield is a young teacher in need of a job. 
 
In a room full of twenty-nine other newly qualified teachers, he's overjoyed when he's appointed to Heather View Primary. Jack is excited to start his first year there and to begin shaping young minds in a beautiful new location on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. 
 
But Heather View isn't as idyllic as it first sounds. In fact, it looks more like a prison than a primary school. With less than adequate funding and a head teacher who doesn't seem to care, it's no easy task to give the kids the education they deserve. But Jack's determined to do just that. 
 
Full of warmth and good humour, Back to School is like taking a nostalgic walk through the past to a simpler time... 
_____________________ 
 
What readers are saying: 
 
***** 'I felt I was transported back in time. This was a joy to read.' 
***** 'By chapter 3 I loved this book so much that I ordered two other titles by this author!' 
***** 'So uplifting and joyous.' 
_____________________ 
 
Praise for Jack Sheffield: 
 
 'Wry observation and heartwarming humour in equal measure.' Alan Titchmarsh 
 'Overflowing with amusing anecdotes.' Daily Express 
 'Amusing adventures at the North Yorkshire village school.' Choice 
 'Jack Sheffield's in a class of his own.' York Press

Back to School

The delightful, feel-good novel from the author of the Teacher series

Susan Sallis

From the Sunday Times bestselling author Susan Sallis comes a wonderfully evocative novel, perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy, Fiona Valpy and Rosamunde Pilcher. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING AN ORDINARY WOMAN! 
"A remarkable story of love, life, pleasures and hazards. Strong characters who define this story. Excellent read and would strongly recommend Susan Sallis" -- 5 STARS 
"The storyline was captivating from the start..." - 5 STARS 
"This book held me from the first page to the last!" - 5 STARS 
"Very good story, loved every minute..." - 5 STARS 
 
*********************************************** 
WHEN NEEDED, WILL SHE BE ABLE TO RISE TO THE CHALLENGE? 
 
1945, Connecticut. A scandal breaks which forces a baffled Rose, aged four, and her mother to leave America and return home to England. 
 
The following May, a sister is born - Joanna or 'Jon'. Rose and Jon are like chalk and cheese. Jon is vivacious, fun, impetuous, rash and persuasive. Rose is reserved, steady, sure, reliable and...ordinary. It is her lot in life to hold the family together through times of tragedy and emotional upheaval. 
 
But, when, years later, Jon sets events in motion which send Rose across the Atlantic again and into the most extraordinary event of her life, can she ever be thought of as ordinary again?

An Ordinary Woman

An utterly captivating and uplifting story of one woman’s strength and determination…

David Hall

In the early 1950s Britain was still the most urbanized and industrialized nation in the world, a global power in shipbuilding and the leading European producer of coal, steel, cars and textiles. For the many millions of men and women hard at work during that time, an infernal landscape of smoke-blackened factories, towering slag heaps and fiery furnaces dominated their lives. From the deep docks and towering cranes of the Tyneside shipyards to the mills and chimneys of Lancashire and beyond, Working Lives takes us right to the heart of those industrial centres through the words of those who were there. 
 
Drawn together from hundreds of hours of first-hand interviews, Working Lives is a unique collection of oral testimonies from workers whose stories might not otherwise have been told: mill girls who risked life and limb in dusty, noisy weaving sheds; steel workers who wrestled sheets of white-hot metal in the blistering heat of the foundries; and miners who hewed coal by hand on filthy, cramped, claustrophobic coalfaces. 
 
Local industries shaped these workers’ entire lives but also gave them a sense of pride, identity and belonging. As they look back on the dangers and hardships of their jobs, and the place of industry in their close-knit communities, these fascinating voices paint a vivid and moving portrait of working life in Britain not to be forgotten.

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