Bristol Books in China!
The biography of Louise Brown, the world’s first IVF baby, published by Bristol Books has now been published in Mandarin for Chinese readers.
The biography of Louise Brown, the world’s first IVF baby, published by Bristol Books has now been published in Mandarin for Chinese readers.
Bristol Books first published the story in a hardback book in 2015. It tells how Lesley and John Brown from Bristol became the first people in the world to have a “test tube baby” and the impact that event and the worldwide publicity had on the family and Louise.
Written first-person as Louise by Martin Powell in association with the family the book was updated in 2018 as a softback special 40th anniversary edition to mark Louise’s 40th birthday.
Now “My Life As The World’s First Test Tube Baby” has been updated further and published by the Chinese Society of Reproductive Medicine to inform those working in the state-run fertility clinics in China about the history of the technique and how it affected the family involved.
Martin Powell said: “I never imagined for one moment when I was writing the story that it would end up being published in Mandarin. I went to Chongqing with Louise last year and saw first hand the amazing work now being done in China to help people with fertility problems.
“Louise and her family are proud of their Bristol roots. The IVF technique perfected by Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe was one of the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century and changed forever the way people can be conceived. There are now around 10 million people born through IVF in the world.”
The English version of Louise’s book is available in softback and hardback here:
The Colour Of Football Launch
Steve Stacey’s book The Colour of Football was launched at Ashton Gate Stadium with former Bristol City players, Steve’s family, football fans and officials attending.
Steve Stacey’s book The Colour of Football was launched at Ashton Gate Stadium with former Bristol City players, Steve’s family, football fans and officials attending.
Richard Jobson, Chairman of the Professional Footballers Association was among those attending, together with City players Trevor Tainton, Tony Ford, Jantzen Derrick, “Shadow Williams and others and City President Marina Dolman.
Empica PR captured the atmosphere of the evening in this video.
The life of a football pioneer
Steve Stacey will fly from his home in Australia to talk about how he progressed from his humble beginnings of kicking a ball around in the gas-lit streets of post-war Bristol to playing in the top tier of the English game.
The first black African-American to play professional football in the UK returns to his childhood home of Bristol next month to share his story with youngsters growing up in the city today.
Steve Stacey will fly from his home in Australia to talk about how he progressed from his humble beginnings of kicking a ball around in the gas-lit streets of post-war Bristol to playing in the top tier of the English game.
During his six-week visit to his home city, Steve will speak at Fairfield High School, which he attended as a child, and Orchard School in Horfield, the area of Bristol where he lived and first dreamed about being a professional player.
He will also launch his autobiography, The Colour of Football, on Friday, September 6, at 18.00 in the Sports Bar at Ashton Gate, home of Bristol City, the club where he began his pro career – despite being a Bristol Rovers fan!
Steve’s black American GI father had not been allowed to marry his white English mother, and returned to the United States, leaving Steve as the only black face among a sea of white peers.
But when his football ability saw him become captain of a street team, he felt he fitted in and realised that colour played no part in football.
He said: “No matter what had happened in the past, name-calling, being ignored, I never felt I was less worthy than anyone else on the street again, ever.
“I have considered this often on my journey. With all the glamour of a professional football career, perhaps being captain of the street team was the most important and crucial appointment of my whole life.
“As I grew up, all my friends and those I played football with were white. As I turned professional, I was admired for my skill with the ball, not for the colour of my skin.
“Today, teams are brimming with players of different nationalities and colour, and that is the way it should be.
“But I like to think that, in some small way, I was part of the beginning.”
Steve was a versatile player who could occupy pretty much any position, including that of goalkeeper!
He was eventually sold by Bristol City’s chairman, Harry Dolman, to Wrexham to help raise the funds needed to build the Dolman Stand. His career took him to Ipswich, back to Bristol City and then Exeter and Bath City, until he emigrated with his wife and two daughters to Australia in 1974, where he continued to play – as one of the first ever black footballers in Australia – and coach.
He was nearly 40-years-old when he managed to track down and then meet his father and his US family, which opened his eyes to the suffering of the black community in the area where his father was born and raised – Kemper County and the infamous ‘killing fields’ for black African-Americans.
Steve’s story – and his book - contains fascinating insights into dressing room banter, lots of wheeling and dealing, the frustration of dealing with injuries, and features a host of famous names, from Bristol City legend John Atyeo to one of Steve’s Ipswich – and future England – managers, Sir Bobby Robson.
He spent his life thinking about his ancestral roots and trying to trace them and is looking forward to returning to his own roots, and the city which played such an important role in his formative years. He’ll also be taking part in events to mark Bristol Black History month in October, with a lecture at M Shed on October 9 at 18.00 titled, Ancestral Roots and Football Boots.
Gordon Taylor OBE, Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said: “People of all backgrounds, races, religions and cultures can come together through football.
“Steve Stacey is not one of the big stars. But as the son of a black American GI and a white English woman, he was a pioneer. Professional football is all about the Steve Stacey’s of this world.
“The PFA is proud to have helped Steve tell his story. It is one that will resonate with football lovers everywhere and is a great insight into what it was like to be a professional footballer in Steve’s time.”
The Colour of Football is priced at £12 and will be available from book shops, Ashton Gate Stadium from Friday, September 6.
Steve Stacey rose from kicking a ball in the gaslit streets of post-war Bristol to running out in the top flight of English football. Often the only black face in the team he was the first African-American to grace the professional English game.
This poignant, funny and at times deeply moving tale, takes you behind the scenes as a professional footballer working up through the ranks while at the same time searching for his roots.
Tribute to John Sansom
All at Bristol Books were saddened to hear of the death of John Sansom of Redcliffe Press. He put Bristol on the publishing map and he will be sadly missed by all in the publishing community.
All at Bristol Books were saddened to hear of the death of John Sansom of Redcliffe Press. He put Bristol on the publishing map and he will be sadly missed by all in the publishing community.
John, was also a lovely, friendly, knowledgeable man and we extend our condolences to his wife Angela, his children and grandchildren. In 2011 he was awarded a Doctor of Letters honorary degree by Bristol University. Below is part of a biography published at that time, which we reproduce as as tribute.
Michael Liversidge, Emeritus Dean of Arts, said at the ceremony “The Redcliffe Press rose to local prominence principally, but not exclusively, as a publisher of books about Bristol, its region and the West Country.
“It has made books about the history and culture of Bristol and Bristolians accessible to the public, and has done much to awaken interest in the city and its heritage.
“John can also claim his own place in Bristol’s history as one of a small select company of publishers who have started up and stayed on here.”
John had two previous careers before work brought him to Bristol where he reinvented himself as publisher.
He joined the Royal Air Force after school where he did his National Service as a clerk, learning shorthand and typing while he thought about becoming a journalist or writer later in life.
Then, in 1957, he got a job with Berkshire County Council where he learnt accounting and business skills in the audit department.
But a career in local government didn’t appeal to John so he joined the Bristol and West Building Society and soon became a branch manager in Swindon.
With his success came the prospect of a career in management, a future John decided to shun in favour of writing.
He began to do freelance financial journalism while immersing himself into Bristol’s cultural life, which gave him the opportunity to write about the arts.
John then branched out into the risky business of publishing books and his first book, entitled Children’s Bristol, was a runaway success in 1976 and had to be reprinted within days of going on sale.
Redcliffe Press went on to expand into academic as well as popular history, books about art and architecture, its own poetry imprint, cricket and cuisine, football and trams, theatre and many other subjects.
Along with his wife Angela and their daughters, the family established a second imprint called Sansom and Company in 1995, which specialises in the fine arts, and launched a third called Art Dictionaries in 1998.
In that time he worked tirelessly with scores of authors and produced several hundred books, involving himself creatively in every part of what can be a long process.
While Bristol remains an important focus for what it does, John’s collection of books have cast their nets far wider than the West Country and acquired a national, and indeed international, profile.
John was also an active supporter of The Royal West of England Academy, the Bristol Short Story Competition, the Bristol Civic Society and The Friends of Bristol Art Gallery.
The part he’s played in Bristol life over several decades has been recognised by the Bristol Evening Post, with its Lifetime Achievement Award, and by the City with the rare civic distinction of a Lord Mayor’s Medal.
45 bridges and a 45km walk that spans 1,000 years of Bristol's history
From Brycgstow To Bristol In 45 Bridges, by Jeff Lucas and Dr Thilo Gross, has been published this month by Bristol Books.
From Brycgstow To Bristol In 45 Bridges, by Jeff Lucas and Dr Thilo Gross, has been published this month by Bristol Books.
The importance of bridges to the city of Bristol is written into its very name; the first written reference to the city, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 1051, calls it Brycgstow, which means ‘place by the bridge’.
Each one of Bristol’s bridges, from oldest to newest, has a fascinating story which is woven intimately into the 1,000-year history of the city. Why was it built? What was involved in its design, engineering and construction? What dramatic events sometimes swirled around and perhaps on it?
In this book Jeff Lucas tells the story of each of the 45 bridges which span the main waterways of Bristol, between Avonmouth and St Anne’s, and which can be crossed on foot.
Among the historic bridge-related episodes that Jeff recounts are the Bristol Bridge massacre of 1793, the Bathurst Basin naphtha explosion of 1888, and the mass gas workers strike of 1889.
Illustrated with 120 colour photographs, this book will open up new ways of looking at these often-beautiful structures that we usually take for granted.
The book also describes how the bridges can be linked into a 45km circular walk that takes you from the nooks and crannies of the inner city to the open vistas of the Severn Estuary and back again.
This walk is also the solution to an intriguing mathematical puzzle called The Königsberg Bridge Problem: how to walk around a given set of bridges, crossing each one only once.
The problem has been solved for Bristol’s 45 bridges by Thilo Gross, a young mathematician who worked at Bristol University. Thilo contributes a chapter about the bridge problem, its importance to mathematics and the modern world, and how he solved it for Bristol.
When Thilo first published his "Bridge Problem" solution in the Bristol Post in 2013, we believe that Bristol became the first city in the world to do so, followed a year later by New York.
If you do decide to take on the challenge of the walk, there is a map of the route and full walk instructions included in the book.
Author Jeff Lucas said: “In everyday life we rarely pay attention to bridges, but they are vital to human society and its history".
“They are of significance economically and socially; they are strategically important in warfare – battles are fought over them. They constitute powerful imagery in literature and poetry. They can be as simple as a plank but also superlative feats of design and engineering".
“They are often the primary subject of visual art and can be sculptural objects in their own right.”
“This walk will take you into strange and not-so-strange places where you will discover the delightful and the dreadful! I hope readers will enjoy exploring Bristol in this new and unusual way".
From Brycgstow To Bristol In 45 Bridges is priced at £18 and is available from books shops or online through www.bristolbooks.org (ISBN: 978-1-909446-18-2).