Roger Bradshaigh Lloyd

This book is a fascinating collection of essays investigating the social history of the railways in Great Britain. It covers diverse topics from the earliest pioneering railway builders, the navvies that built the railways, the development of the railway towns such as Crewe and Swindon and the railways during the second World War. It examines the impact of railway development on Victorian Britain and contains many interesting historical details of the changes the railways brought. There are studies of some of the railway pioneers responsible for developing the rail network in Britain. Among the chapter titles are 'The Old English Navvy', Portrait of a Victorian Railway' and 'Yhe Highland Railway at War'. All in all, a very absorbing read.

Suppose that a number of fiends from Hell were sent to make a war on a modern English Cathedral city — an idea which no New Testament writer would have found unduly fantastic — what would then be likely to happen? Since Hell can attack nothing which Heaven does not at once move to defend, the fiends of this novel are matched and countered by various spirits of "just men made perfect" who are brought back to life for the occasion. These include St. Swithun and King Alfred, and also a certain Brother Tobias who had been a colourful pirate before he "found religion". With these and others like them, the fiends are locked in conflict on the stage of the City, and a new engagement in the vast "War of Heaven", of which the biblical of the Apocalypse speaks, is set in motion. The evil spirits contend with the good for two great prizes, first the souls of the human beings concerned, and second, the soul of the City itself. The real heroes of the tale are the human souls these titans try to win. The story rises to an exciting climax in a final scene of the judgement which is staged in the Cathedral itself. This novel is fable and, like all true fables, it is a fantasy with a teaching purpose. But it is a gripping story which moves at a great pace, and being set in this world, it alternates between the grim and the tender, the sad and the gay. It was first written to be read aloud on seven successive evenings to a conference of the Servants of Christ the King, which was held in Winchester, so this ancient city provides the story with its topography. Those who first heard it clamoured for publication in book form. Since then the author has re-written it from start to finish and greatly expanded it. Those who know his earlier essays in the field of religious fiction, will eagerly welcome this novel.