As with the Almanac of South Yorkshire this too tells a story of the past over 365 days and covers key events over some three hundred years or more.
Essentially it tells the story of the county and its dark, murky past, recalling long forgotten events, strange encounters, murders, court cases, executions and witchcraft.
Intended to read as a diary with 365 historical factual events, one for every day of the year.
All truthful accounts of past events that impacted in one way or another in the county of South Yorkshire.
Dark, at times perhaps macabre, sometimes strange and often murderous, but always accurate.
Essentially this book is a historical document recalling events lost to the past but all, in their own way, important.
Twenty-one cases, not all solved, ranging from 1832-1958.
The book includes the IRA bombing of Coventry in 1939; the fascinating case at Lower Quinton that Fabian of the Yard failed to solve the murder of Charles Walton in 1945; the unsolved murder of Penelope Mogano, Coventry, 1954, a case that really ought to have been solved and reads like a 1950’s melodrama, and nasty killing of Isaiah Dixon at Rugby in 1958.
A comprehensive look at the county’s dark side.
Twenty-one cases ranging from the poisoning of Jane Grant (1818) to the killing of Ivy Warner (1951). Covering the county, it is again a mix of murder and suspicious death.
Included amongst the cases covered are the murders of Maud Atkins (1922) in Derby; Ada Knighton in Ilkeston (1927) and the Amy Collinson murder at Hayfield (1927).
Sixteen cases between 1937-1951 covering most of the county from the four child murders at Basford (1837); the strange shooting of Catherine Cross at Hyson Green (1893); the appalling case of Nurse Waddingham (1936) and a couple of very strange, unsolved murders, Samuel Fell Wilson at Warsop (1930) and Florence Weatherall at Bestwood (1951).
Seventeen cases, a mix of solved and unsolved murders beginning with the highway robbery of John Whitaker (1856); the killing of Samuel Barker (1904); the now famous double child murder of Amy and Francis Nicholson at Kimberworth Park (1912); the Hooton Roberts murder of Kathleen Roodhouse (1926) and the killing of Lucy Stray at Thurcroft.
I have also included here the mysterious death of Henry Cook (1906) near Bradgate.