Book description
This collection of historic horrid happenings from across the
country demonstrates that Christmas is not necessarily a time of
peace, joy and goodwill to all men. Festive tragedies include the
avalanche in Lewes, which destroyed several cottages in 1836, killing
eight of the occupants and injuring many more, and the fall of a
chimney in Bradford in 1882, which claimed fifty-four lives. There are
fatal rail crashes in Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cumbria and
Scotland; freak weather conditions and devastating fires, such as the
Christmas Eve fire in Glasgow that cost the lives of four firemen in
1927. The holiday season has witnessed a plethora of almost
unbelievable accidents, such as the amateur mechanic who died with his
head stuck in a car engine, the footballer who leaped into a quarry to
retrieve a lost ball, and the Christmas party guest who fell down a
flight of stairs and broke his neck. Among the chilling crimes
featured here is that of Nottinghamshire man Edward Kesteven, who
killed his wife on Christmas Day 1894, and the murder of Thirza Kelly
in Norfolk by a local teenager on Christmas Eve 1900. Full of merry
madness and hearty heartache, A Horrid History of Christmas will make
you want to bypass the festivities altogether!
Nicola Sly has a Masters Degree in forensic and legal psychology and
currently teaches criminology to adult learners. She is the author of
over twenty true crime titles, including Murder by Poison: A Casebook of
Historic British Murders.
