Wintertime in the moody, atmospheric mists of East Anglia. Diving into the cold, murky water of a lake, Kit and Joe find an elaborate patten - a Fen word for ice skate. Its return to the surface is not widely welcomed and, as it emerges, the story of how the skate became detached from its owner fifty years ago leads the boys deep into a chilling mystery whose conclusion is yet to be played out. What could have been surging up through the ice that day half a century past that so frightened young Tom Townley? Why has Tom suffered constantly from nightmares and visions of beings who make no noise, but so menacingly watch? Who are they watching now - and why?

Travel & holiday guides.

Enid Porter spent many years collecting and recording from Cambridgeshire people the folk beliefs and customs held and observed in the country, both past and present. The subjects covered in the book, first published in 1969, range from the folklore of courtship, marriage, birth and death, of trees and plants and the whole world of nature to traditional Cambridgeshire food and drink; from ghosts and witchcraft and the cure of disease to charity and land-letting customs. The traditional occupations of the county, as well as the dress worn by the workers in the various crafts and the tools and implements they used, are also recorded, and there are accounts of various Cambridgeshire sports and pastimes. There is a section on University customs, ranging from the ancient procedure observed at examinations and degree ceremonies, through College Stamps and Mock Funerals, to the appointment made formerly of a Christmas Lord in the Colleges. Miss Porter spent most of her life in Cambridge and her mother’s family have lived there since the sixteenth century, so she includes information based on her own observations and on those of members of her family. The Fenland material has largely been provided by W. H. Barrett, well known through his collections of Fen Tales.

The Telegraph’s obituaries pages are renowned for their quality of writing and capacity to distil the essence of a life from its most extraordinary moments. A unique mix of heroism, ingenuity, infamy and the bizarre, Thinker, Failure, Soldier, Jailer collects the very best of those obituaries to present an endlessly absorbing compendium of human endeavour. Organised day by day around the calendar year, with each life presented on the date it ended, the book features hundreds of remarkable stories. World statesmen jostle with glamorous celluloid stars, pioneering boffins sit alongside chart-topping rock ’n’ rollers, while artists and their muses mingle with record-breaking sportsmen, Victoria Cross winners, spies, showgirls and captains of industry – as well as the titans of rather more esoteric fields. Here, for instance, can be found Britain’s greatest goat breeder, a hangman who campaigned to abolish the death penalty, a priest to Soho’s pimps, a cross-dressing mountaineer and a minister who preached a gospel of avarice - donations in notes only, please, as ‘change makes me nervous’. A treasure trove of human virtue, vice and trivia, Thinker, Failure, Soldier, Jailer is the perfect gift for the armchair psychologist in all of us.

Anxiety. Addiction. Depression. We associate these words with the challenges of modern life. Rarely do we consider how these conditions shaped past generations. Using archival sources, testimonies, and her grandfather Walter Parker’s experiences, the author not only paints a vivid picture of life in an English Victorian village, but she also draws upon psychological theory to explore the lives of her working-class ancestors. What did your forebears inherit from their parents? Which psychological characteristics did your ancestors hand down? A Victorian’s Inheritance can help you find answers.