Alan Davies: 29 books

Applied Linguistics is still a growing field. Key texts and handbooks have appeared in recent years and international applied linguistics conferences and professional associations occur regularly. While Applied Linguistics continues to attract new entrants and to generate new strands of research,...

When Alan Davies was growing up he seemed to drive his family mad. 'What are we going to do with you?' they would ask - as if he might know the answer. Perhaps it was because he came of age in the 1980s. That decade of big hair, greed, camp music, mass unemployment, social unrest and truly...

The first deep shafts sunk at Atherton were by John Fletcher. The family firm of Fletcher, Burrows & Co. sank numerous shafts in the vicinity of the village of Atherton including Gibfield, Howe Bridge and Hindsford. Nationalized in 1947, the collieries were operated by the National Coal Board...

Located close to the Ellesmere Colliery, the Walkden Yard ultimately became the NCB Central Workshops for Lancashire. From here the workshops served the Bridgewater Trustees' collieries, providing engineering support as well as maintaining the numerous railway locomotives and the many hundreds of...

A.J. Cronin, author of some of the best-loved novels of the mid-twentieth century and the creator of Dr Finlay, has been unjustly overlooked by literary biographers. In this, the first full-length life of this eminent but often neglected writer, Alan Davies recounts the story of Cronins Scottish childhood...

The old Bridgewater Trustees mineral railways were to become the Central Railways of the huge Manchester Collieries concern, which was formed in March 1929. The landscape with its changing, suddenly abrupt and often fierce gradients was to be a cruel one for these colliery locomotives which were worked...

'Native speakers' and 'native users' are terms traditionally used to differentiate between speakers who have acquired a language from birth and speakers who have learnt a second language. This book highlights the problems associated with making such a clear cut distinction. By analysing a range of...

Winner of the 1997 Jewish Book Committee award for scholarship on a Canadian Jewish subject. Ever since Abella and Troper (None Is too Many, 1982) exposed the anti-Semitism behind Canada’s refusal to allow Jewish escapees from the Third Reich to immigrate, the Canadian churches have been...

Ebbw Vale's many losses over the past hundred years are celebrated here - collieries, steelworks, cinemas, churches, chapels, post offices, schools, railways, streets, local shops and especially jobs have all disappeared, only to be replaced, in many instances, by new housing estates, bypasses, town...

The area of Lancashire and Cheshire can be considered one of the homes of the Industrial Revolution, and it was the abundance of coal close to the surface that literally helped fuel the great growth in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool. With poor roads, it was easier to move coal by water and...

On the morning of Wednesday 21 December 1910, 889 men and boys travelled the two 434- yard-deep shafts at Hulton Colliery, also known as Pretoria Pit, situated in Over Hulton, north of Atherton, Lancashire. Sunk in 1900, the colliery was plagued with emissions of gas, particularly after roof falls....

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.' Joseph Addison This pocket-sized miscellany, packed with fascinating facts, handy hints and captivating stories and quotes from the world of birds, is perfect for anyone who knows the incomparable joy of birdwatching.

This book is book aims to provide the beginner with a concise, practical and systematic guide to interpreting ECGs. It will serve not only as a starter text but also as an immediate bedside reference manual. Starting to Read ECGs: The Basics begins with fundamentals such as how to perform, record...

​​​The ECG is one of the most widely available diagnostic tests used in clinical practice today. This book is intended to build upon the topics covered in Starting to Read ECGs: The Basics thus allowing the reader to enhance their previous knowledge. Additional topics covered include a detailed...