Wallsend's name recalls its origins as a settlement on the frontier of the Roman Empire. Over the centuries the town at the end of the Wall would become just as famous for its coal, ships and marine engineering. In this book, Jean and Ken Smith spotlight important aspects of the history of this friendly Tyneside community.

Tish Murtha's important and stunning photographic essay on the hardships of youth unemployment in Newcastle during the Thatcher years. Tish believed that photography could change lives for the better but sadly died of a brain aneurysm in 2013 before her dream of a book could be realised. Tish was born in South Shields, near Newcastle, in 1956, the 3rd of 10 children. She left school at 16 and had a variety of different jobs from selling hot dogs to working in a petrol station. After enrolling on a night photography course, Tish decided she wanted to become a photographer and was offered a place at the prestigious School of Documentary Photography at the University of Wales under the guidance of Magnum photographer David Hurn. The photographs were shot over a few years starting in 1979 and exhibited at Newcastle's Side Gallery in 1981. They captured the hardship that the North East of England suffered during the Thatcher era. It really was a desperate time - a period of bitter conflict as young people grew more and more frustrated with an economic system that deprived them of a productive and meaningful future.

Alan Morgan's Beyond the Grave explores over 30 last resting places in and around Newcastle upon Tyne - parish churchyards, municipal cemeteries, private burial grounds. Some have vanished altogether - though their occupants may still be there beneath the busy city streets. Alan has investigated their histories, and the occasionally strange stories of their various residents, from famous shipbuilders and engineers to the inventor of the kipper. Beyond the Grave includes plans of the larger cemeteries to help readers who wish to explore them, a brief history of burial practices through the ages, and an explanation of the symbols that often decorate the elaborate memorials of the past. This book is the companion to Alan Morgan's immensely popular A Fine and Private Place, which focuses on the remarkable story of that 'Highgate of the North', Jesmond Old Cemetery.