Around Haunted Manchester by Peter Portland
ISBN 1 897762 25 9 Index, 14 Illustrations, Bibliography and Webography. 125 pages. Size 130 x 200

Guide to original source material for Ghosts and Hauntings in the Manchester area (within M60, and Stately Homes of Cheshire and Lancashire). Includes Boggarts, Fairies and Screaming Skulls. Brereton Death Omen, Iron Bottle and Nell Beck of Alderley Edge, Phantom Cat of Swinton, Headless Dog of Deansgate, Boggart Hole Clough, The Gatley Shouter, Combermere Abbey, Lyme Park, Hough Hall at Moston, Wythenshawe Hall, Marple Hall, The Gory Head of Mowbreck Hall, Screaming Skull of Wardley Hall, The Bloody Footprints at Smithills Hall, The Mummy of Hannah Beswick.


GBP £7.50

 

The Stanleys of Alderley 1927-2001 A Politically Incorrect Story
By Thomas, 8th Lord Stanley. ISBN 1 897762 35 6, Illustrations, Index, 125 pages.

Lord Stanley of Alderley takes up his family's history in 1927, and describes the end of the Alderley Estates in Cheshire in the 1930s through waste and fecklessness under the 6th Lord Stanley. Inheriting in tragic circumstances, he (with his younger brother) restored the family name, but also participated in the end of the House of Lords as a hereditary body. This is a contribution to the long history of this family, to join Bertrand Russell's Amberley Papers, and Nancy Mitford's Ladies of Alderley.



In Bookshops: £19.95
Order Online: £15.25

 

The Birds of Alderley Edge in 1837 by Edward Stanley. GBP £4.95 ISBN 1 897762 55 0

Edward Stanley D.D., Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Geological Society, of the Stanleys of Alderley, was Rector of Alderley from 1805 to 1837. During that time he meticulously observed the local birdlife. These extracts, in pamphlet form, are from his 'Familiar Birds', now out of print for over a century, and refer solely to Alderley Edge and its immediate neighbourhood, They also cover the dates of arrival of many local birds - a useful calibration to today's much earlier dates. He also draws attention to the growing disappearance of some previously common birds such as woodcocks.

Stanley writes in a simple but elegant style, and many of his descriptions show great powers of both observation and expression. He also includes local folklore, as well as his own version of the Stanley 'Eagle and Child' legend. This text is centred, as might be expected, on the Rectory and Church of St Mary's, Nether Alderley, in the quietness immediately prior to the arrival of the railway, and the development of the new village and station of Alderley Edge. It contains 25pp with short biography and original illustrations; Stanley's reputed involvement in the Iron Bottle and Bird Exorcism (when his hair is said to have turned white overnight) is included as an appendix. Eagle and Child, blackbirds, ravens, canaries, starlings, rooks, robins, swallows, woodcocks, a singular goose and nightingales.



GBP £4.95

 

The Alzheimer Memoirs - Manchester & Dresden
by Stewart MacNally. Price: £2.95 including postage. ISBN 10 897762 55 0

An extended reflection in verse on Memory, and on the power of love and hatred to affect our view of the past. The Alzheimer Memoirs explore the destruction of Manchester and Dresden in the Second World War, and the destruction of Memory at the individual level by old age and illness. The Cathedral of the human body and the Frauenkirche meld. The Alzheimer Memoirs examines the remedies of artificial memory in our photographs, CDs, computer hard drives. And how both recreational and prescription drugs, and a new range of battlefield chemicals may soon be enhancing or destroying our ability to think and remember. Stewart MacNally is a previous winner of the Cardiff International Poetry Prize.

Speak, Memory……

GBP £2.95

 

The China Watcher in Croydon
 by Stewart MacNally. Price: £2.95 including postage ISBN 10 897762 60 7

The dislocation of Chinese sensibility over three decades and at various geographic points. In Xian the Terracotta Warriors are now mirrored in the shopwindow mannikins of expensive brands in the shopping malls: the First Emperor plots his revenge. In Shanghai, Liverpool is dreaming reflected in the Huagpu River. A dinner at the Embassy turns into a lesson on Lychees and Courtesans. Meanwhile, between acute bouts of jet-lag, the China Watcher eyes a distant and glowing nightime vision of wealth in the skyscrapers of the City of London and Canary Wharf - from the safe distance of Croydon's abandoned Airfield. Stewart MacNally is a previous winner of the Cardiff International Poetry Prize.

An inky love poem to China on a starched napkin,

Sealed red with bitter sauce......

 

Proceeds to the sum of GBP£1.00 per copy sold of SJ MacNally’s The China Watcher will be dedicated to the relief of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Extracts from The China Watcher will be read in the Manchester Portico Library on Friday, 20th  June at 5 pm.  Email: web@amcd.co.uk for reservations.

GBP £2.95