Bücher von Bernard O'Connor

According to recently declassified documents in the British National Archives, twenty-four women were engaged to provide assistance to officers of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) working clandestinely in Italy. The oldest was 64 and the youngest was 21. The average age was 32, older than might have been expected. Of those who provided details of their occupation, five were students, three had office jobs and two were housewives. Others were a shopkeeper, teacher, dressmaker, designer and a novelist. Four were married, two were widows, two were separated and the rest were single. Two of the older women had daughters living at home who were also engaged to help SOE as couriers and escorts. Fourteen described their work as a courier but most provided other services as well, for example, providing food and accommodation for the organiser and sometimes the wireless operator; hiding supplies like explosives and arms for the partisans and providing military intelligence. One prepared sabotage material. One took photographs of sabotaged targets and another was a propagandist for the BBC. Bernard O'Connor's documentary history tells their stories, most for the first time, using personnel files, mission reports, autobiographies, biographies, history books and websites.

'There's Life in Pattingham, Staffordshire' provides insight into the lives of people who lived, worked and died here since newspapers were published nearly three centuries ago. It includes articles on births, engagements, marriages, divorces, accidents, deaths, crime, sport, leisure activities, auctions and sale particulars.

Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain negotiated an agreement with their Soviet ally to supply them with military aid. There was also a secret agreement to bring Soviet agents on the Arctic convoys back to Scotland and facilitate their infiltration into occupied Western Europe. The Special Operations Executive, a top-secret British organisation established under Winston Churchill's order to "set Europe ablaze by sabotage," was tasked with the mission. They created a Russian Section and its Director was keen to recruit Russian-speakers to assist them, some to provide intelligence on the Soviet Union, some to help identify other potential recruits and others to be trained as secret agents and be infiltrated behind enemy lines.White Russians, men and women who had emigrated from Russia and settled in Britain were identified. Others who had settled in France but escaped to Britain following Germany's invasion were investigated. It was from this group that Britain looked to recruit agents for espionage and subversion. Four members of the Russian nobility were considered but investigation by Britain's Intelligence Services revealed that they or their families had close contacts with people connected to the Germans. This mitigated against their recruitment. Two brothers from a medical family were vetted successfully and were recruited. Both were sent to work with Force 136, an SOE military organisation in Southeast Asia. One of them was awarded the MBE for his work in India and Malaya. A father and son, both professional wrestlers, joined SOE and taught unarmed combat, one in Canada, one in Italy. One of them received an MBE for his efforts.Two had escaped to China where, recruited by SOE for action against the Japanese, they assisted the British in Shanghai, Hongkong and Chungking. Both were evacuated to India and one subsequently worked in Cairo. Of the three who received full SOE training, one was eventually found unsuitable to be infiltrated behind enemy lines so was transferred to the Americans for Allied propaganda work. Another was infiltrated into France to work with the resistance in liberating their country. He received the King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom. The last was sent first to Serbia and then to India where the work he did led to him being awarded the MBE. Bernard O'Connor's 'Churchill's Russian Secret Agents' tells these unusual stories for the first time.

'Nobby' Clarke, after leaving Greenwich Hospital School, fought in France and Italy during the First World War, winning a Military Cross. Settling in Bedford, he set up the Low Loading Company in the 1920s. His inventive skills came to the attention of Stuart Macrae, entrusted by the War Office at the beginning of the Second World War in manufacturing explosives. Nobby went on to command a special training school at Brickendonbury Manor, near Hertford, where secret agents destined for occupied Europe learned some deadly skills. His son John, who attended Bedford School, described life in wartime Bedford and provided a detailed insight into his father's activities. Using these, Macrae's autobiography and other contemporary sources, Bernard O'Connor sheds light on one of Bedford's lesser known wartime heroes.

In the two centuries after the Norman invasion, Britain's population more than tripled. Demand for food meant more land had to be brought under cultivation. As the climate was generally warmer than it is today, it was possible to grow cereals and vegetables on higher land. On the Clee Hills in Shropshire, between Ludlow and Bridgnorth, woods were cleared and the timber used in the construction of new houses. Boulders and rocks were moved from the soil and used for building walls. The newly exposed soil was ploughed, seeded, weeded and harvested to feed the growing population. Many new settlements grew up on the slopes below abdon Clee, Clee Burf and Titterstone Clee. Some of them are still in existence but a number have been deserted. Studying deserted medieval villages began in the 1960s and Maurice Beresford, Trevor Rowley, Neha Patil and other historians and archaeologists have researched and written about those in Shropshire. Whilst many believe that the Black Death was responsible for massive rural depopulation, there were a number of other reasons why people deserted these settlements including economic hardship due to climate change, crop failures, animal diseases and wealthy landowners wanting the land for sheep grazing, for parkland and to remove unsightly buildings which spoilt their view.Bernard O'Connor's Deserted Medieval Settlements on the Clee Hills uses extracts from books, the Alchetron, OpenDomesday, the Victoria County History, Shropshire History, British History, Historic England, English Heritage and other websites to detail the deserted settlements of Abdon, Ashfield, Balsam's Heath, Bitterley, Bockleton, Broncroft, Brookhampton, Lower Cleeton, Cleestanton, Coldgreene, Cold Weston, Corfham, Corfton, Culmington, Ditton Priors, Downton, Egerton, Heath, Holdgate, Kinson, Lackstone, Lawton, Leverdgrene, Lydehole, More, Neen Savage, Newton, Great Oxenbold, Shipton, Ruthall, Shipton, Thonglands, Tugford, Wheathill, Witchcot and Yelds.

Built in the 1660s and named the Blue Boar Inn in 1637, this Ludlow pub has served the local community for nearly four hundred years. Local author Bernard O'Connor's 'There's Life in the Blue Boar' includes hundreds of articles from local and national newspapers and extracts from websites which provide a fascinating insight into the life and times of the landladies, landlords, staff and customers of this unique pub. It includes stories of auctions, inquests, meetings, sports club results, drunkenness, assaults, thefts, arguments over rights of way and more.

96-year-old Doreen Roberts is the oldest resident of Bouldon, a hamlet of fourteen houses and a dairy farm at the foot of the Brown Clee in Shropshire.Born in Brighton in 1926, she grew up in London, Birmingham, Guernsey and Weston-super-Mare. She came from a theatrical family but, not having a singing voice like her mother and grandmother, had drawing talent. She studied part-time at the Central London Art School and worked in a book shop and Rowney's art supplies factory before getting seasonal work at Glyndebourne Opera House in Sussex. She later worked full time in the wig room at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden before giving up to marry Norman Roberts, a canal boat builder in Birmingham. They retired to live a quiet secluded life in 1984 where she joined the Corvedale Artists and, over the years, exhibited many of her drawings and watercolours.