The message of this entertaining book is - to slightly misquote the wartime catchphrase - 'Britain can take it'. Take it she certainly has, and over the centuries these islands have withstood a battering from internal and external enemies, nature and human error. John Withington's book paints a picture of Britain bloodied but unbowed through war, invasion, rebellion, massacre, fire, flood, storm, plague, shipwreck, train crashes and terrorism.

Throughout, with detailed stories and lively anecdote, the author brings to life the events and their consequences and makes it clear that even when we have been relatively safe from enemy action there has been internal strife, often of a very violent nature, and the inescapable effects of storm and tempest. It is a wonder that Britain has survived so much for so long!

The book has a compelling, cumulative quality, with the reader constantly asking 'can anything worse happen?' and the author gladly supplying ever more disasters.