The Heiress and the Cowboy
Biographies of heiress Vera Milligen, the daughter of a shipping company owner, and Texan cowboy Alexander 'Tex' McLeod who married in 1939 and performed together for many years at shows and in theatres across the UK, later pursuing separate showbusiness careers. The pair worked with an astonishing number of stars of film, TV and radio.
The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
An innovative exposition was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in the Americas. New ideas and entertainments were presented, but there was a backdrop of appalling racial prejudice and people from other countries displayed in 'Human Zoos'.
Showmen
Biographies of showmen who created and developed exhibition sites and amusement parks during the Victorian and Edwardian eras who are now largely forgotten.
White City - Britain's Greatest Lost Exhibition Site
An area of low-grade farmland and brickfields in northwest London was turned into Britain's greatest exhibition site and accommodated the 1908 Olympic Games. International exhibitions were held there and it was requisitioned in WW1. After the war the site slowly decayed and reverted to bricks as new housing estates were built to house returning servicemen and meet the demands of London's growing population. Older people will remember the stadium but even that was demolished in 1985. The last remnant of the site is a lake built for the 1910 Japan-British exhibition that is now incorporated into Hammersmith Park.