This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join
Amazon Prime today. Already a member?
Sign in.
Product Description
Synopsis
Portsmouth in the 1890's and up to the First World War teemed with bustling service and commercial life. Those were the days when all the men wore hats and every woman carried a parasol, and the ships still smelled of rope, yarn and tar. Richard Esmond was born in Portsea in 1887 and as a child and young man fixed razor-sharp memories of the old city- the Saturday evening markets in Charlotte Street (where you could buy anything from bottles of cure-all and slabs of freshly-sown French Nougat, to pups and kittens with advice as to their care thrown in); the Queen Victoria birthday reviews on Southsea Common; boys stealing rides from horse drawn vans in Portsea; the Musketeers concert party performing on the old pier at Southsea; and hundreds of priceless recollections of a world that changed forever with the coming of the First War. Richard Esmond's great-nephew, well-known Portsmouth Journalist and historian Anthony Triggs, has selected over thirty of the richly-evocative articles written by Esmond in old-age and added to them 250 historic and nostalgic photographs and illustrations. Together they capture the spirit of Britain's naval capital of the zenith of Empire, when sixpence used to buy an ounce of baccy, a pint of beer and a dozen boxes of matches, and the cries of the street-sellers of winkles and watercress were the only sounds to disturb the Sabbath calm of a Sunday afternoon.
