One Family, a Cup of Tea and the Company that Took On the World

Legacy

The Remarkable History of J Lyons and the Family Behind It

I was riveted: this is a fascinating social history.

A magnificent book… what a story this is. Endlessly fascinating.

This story of the family behind the Lyons Corner Houses and many other ventures, its rise and its business demise, is endlessly fascinating and hard to put down. I read it all in one sitting, enjoying the colour and grandeur, whilst spitting with fury at how women were kept out of the financial loop. Full of character and characters, this is a tour de force.

Enthralling... fascinating. Nearly half a century on, the Lyons name and Corner Houses have faded, quite forgotten. I dream of them still.

Five stars. History on a scale at once intimate and grand… extremely readable.

‘A satisfying slab of dynastic history... a brisk, accessible account of how one Anglo-Jewish dynasty provided twentieth-century Britain with the materials it required to imagine itself fondly as a land of cosy comfort.

Written with love and imagination… a masterclass in historical empathy.

Ably combines his story with British political and social history... [an] affectionate and colourful family history.

A monumental history of the rise and fall of the Lyons empire… It’s a terrific story and Harding is surely right to describe the Glucksteins and Salmons as “pioneers, democratising luxury and globalising taste”.

Legacy is the biography of the extraordinary family who put the respectable teashop on the corner, the hamburger on the high street, plus the cuppa and Ready Brek on your breakfast table... Thomas Harding is a researcher of the first rank. Nobody quite stirs the soup of historical detail like Harding.

This extraordinarily rich and meticulously researched history of modern Britain is a tour de force. It’s a paean to the immigrant contribution to our nation.

Have a cuppa and enjoy this rich tale of an old favourite... Fascinating… Harding is to be congratulated on this panoramic history of an institution that was as British as Victoria sponge.

An affectionate family history, deftly sandwiched in the rise and fall of empires, two world wars, and two centuries of social and political change.

In this fascinating history of the dynasty that founded and developed J. Lyons & Company, Thomas Harding provides his readers with an illuminating insight into the lives of the founders and their descendants. This is an impressively researched account of one of Britain’s most well known corporations, one which dominated the business scene from the 1920s through to the 1980s. Yet this book is much more than a family saga. Through the lens of the Salmons and Glucksteins, the author provides authoritative accounts of the changing social, economic and political landscape both in Britain and further afield. It is a book to be recommended to all those who are interested in family and business histories and to those who are keen to learn more about the changing face of Britain in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Thomas Harding has excavated his own family history – it begins with his ancestor Lehmann Gluckstein arriving in the east end of London as a penniless refugee. It culminates in a business empire that dominated every high street in the country, catering to an emerging middle class that had, for the first time, money in its pocket and wanted to dine out affordably. This is the family that democratised consumer spending and defined British taste for generations. It is an astonishing story, beautifully and lovingly told, of powerful family patriarchs, of love stories and business feuds, of family tragedies and commercial triumphs, and of a rags-to-riches journey through risk, jeopardy and fortitude. It is a rich and telling portrait of the immigrant contribution to the character of Britain. And above all it is a compelling tale of family members, conscious of their foreign origins and outsider status, driven more than anything by their loyalty toward and love for each other.

A meticulously-researched rags-to-riches tale

The story of the J Lyons food empire, once ubiquitous, […] and the families who founded and nurtured the business, colourfully told.

Thomas Harding is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 16 languages. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. He is the bestselling author of HANNS AND RUDOLF, which won the JQ-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction; THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; BLOOD ON THE PAGE, which won the Crime Writers' Association "Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction" and FUTURE HISTORY, which was shortlisted for the German Children's Literature Award 2021. His next book, WHITE DEBT, was published in January 2022. You can follow Thomas on twitter @thomasharding

'I was riveted: this is a fascinating social history.' NIGELLA LAWSON 
 
'Five stars... history on a scale at once intimate and grand.' TELEGRAPH 
 
A panoramic new history of modern Britain, as told through the story of one extraordinary family, and one groundbreaking company. 
 
This is the story of how a family transformed themselves from penniless immigrants to build a company that revolutionised the way we eat, drink and are entertained. For over a century, Lyons was everywhere. Its restaurants and corner houses were on every high street, its coffee and tea in every cup, its products in every home. But it was a victory that was not easily won. 
 
Told through the lives of five generations, Legacy is at once intimate and sweeping, charting the tragedy and unimaginable success of one of Britain's most famous families. It is also an illuminating new exploration of Britain and its place in the world, from the bestselling author of Hanns and Rudolf and The House by the Lake. 
 
'A magnificent book... endlessly fascinating.' JEWISH CHRONICLE 
 
'How the Lyons company took on the world... a satisfying slab of dynastic history.' GUARDIAN, 'Book of the Day' 
 
'Written with love and imagination... a masterclass in historical empathy.' TLS 
 
'An affectionate and colourful family history.' FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'Rich... Fascinating... Harding is to be congratulated on this panoramic history.' EVENING STANDARD 
 
'Endlessly fascinating and hard to put down... this is a tour de force.' JULIA NEUBERGER

WINNER of the 2018 Gold Dagger Award for Non-Fiction

Blood on the Page

A groundbreaking examination of a terrifying murder and its aftermath by the bestselling author of Hanns and Rudolf and The House by the Lake.

Meticulous and gripping – a thriller that disturbs for revelations about a singular act of murder, and the national security state which we call home.

Philippe Sands, author of 'East West Street'

A real-life procedural... which might have important implications for us all.

Blood on the Page is an In Cold Blood for our time – a brilliant and unflinching anatomy of a murder that is both brutal true crime and heartbreaking human tragedy.

A fine and fascinating read, bolstered by exemplary research and nuanced insights. Absorbing.

An absolute gem of a true-crime story ... The author's investigation, and his storytelling, are peerless. A superb book.

Harding's book Hanns and Rudolf was a marvel of investigative research. Blood on the Page is similarly diligent and thorough in its approach.

One of the most intriguing murder cases in British legal history... There are enough questions raised by Harding's meticulous research to suggest that reasonable doubt still hangs over the conviction.

Reads like a thriller... a rigorous investigation... a revealing piece of social history.

Thomas Harding follows the twists and turns of the investigation in the best traditions of the true crime narrative. Detailed, painstaking and fascinating.

Absolutely gripping throughout and builds to a devastating conclusion. Just brilliant.

***WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION*** 
 
'Meticulous and gripping - a thriller that disturbs for revelations about a singular act of murder, and the national security state which we call home' Philippe Sands, author of East West Street 
 
A groundbreaking examination of a terrifying murder and its aftermath by the bestselling author of Hanns and Rudolf and The House by the Lake. 
 
On 14 June 2006, police were called to 9 Downshire Hill in Hampstead. The owner, Allan Chappelow, was a writer and notorious recluse who had not been seen for several weeks. Inside the darkened house, officers found piles of rubbish, trees growing through the floor, and the body of Chappelow, battered to death, partially burned and buried under four feet of paper. 
 
The man eventually arrested on suspicion of his murder was a Chinese dissident named Wang Yam, who claimed to be the grandson of one of Mao’s closest aides. His trial was the first in modern British history to be held ‘in camera’: closed, carefully controlled, secret. Wang Yam was found guilty, but has always protested his innocence. 
 
Did Wang Yam do it? Or was he framed for a crime he didn't commit? 
 
When everything is hidden, how do we know what's really true? 
 
www.bloodonthepage.com 
_________________ 
 
'An In Cold Blood for our time – a brilliant and unflinching anatomy of a murder that is both brutal true crime and heartbreaking human tragedy' Tony Parsons 
 
'A fine and fascinating read, bolstered by exemplary research and nuanced insights.' Observer 
 
‘A real-life procedural... which might have important implications for us all.’ Guardian 
 
'Reads like a thriller... a rigorous investigation... a revealing piece of social history.' Sunday Times 
 
'Detailed, painstaking and fascinating.' Evening Standard

Kadian Journal

A moving work of startling bravery and candour of a family dislocated and united by tragedy, and a beautiful and moving tribute to a son.

Out of unbearable grief comes a book of profound love: there is no shred of self-pity in this marvellous book. The malicious and random brutality of fate and the racking pain of loss have met their match in Thomas Harding who miraculously turns those horrors into something memorably great.

Harding's remarkable memoir is written with transparent emotional intelligence. It makes one understand how it was for a father to lose a boy unique in his eyes and loved by everyone who knew him: Kadian.

This is the very best account of a parent’s bereavement I have ever read, a powerfully immediate and clear-eyed record of a devastating experience. It is also a love story, true and deep – offering film-like clips of the joys of parenthood, and of the agony when it abruptly ends.

Julia Samuel, Founder and Patron of Child Bereavement UK

Heartbreaking … profoundly moving … a tender tribute.

A wonderful book, unflinching in its portrayal of the agony - and fury - of grief but at the same time filled with the incandescent love and joy felt by a father for his son, his beautiful boy. Rarely has that intimacy been so lyrically and beautifully described.

Heart-breaking … For a man in such raw, intense pain, Harding writes with incredible precision … Kadian Harding’s 14 years shine brilliantly from its pages … Thomas Harding has been generous in sharing his boy with me and I am grateful he found words.

This book is raw and heart-breaking but it is never intrusive or gratuitous. The writing is real and spare, the love so very deep that the reader can scarcely look away … A beautiful tribute.

Stunning. The most moving book I've read.

A raw and compelling read, weaving between the accident, its aftermath, precious moments in Kadian's life and the unique relationship between a father and son.

Thomas Harding is a journalist who has written for the Sunday Times, Financial Times and the Guardian, among other publications. He co-founded a television station in Oxford, and for many years was an award-winning publisher of a newspaper in West Virginia. He is also the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz. He lives in Hampshire, England.

In July 2012 Thomas Harding’s fourteen-year-old son Kadian was killed in a bicycle accident. Shortly afterwards Thomas began to write. This book is the result. 
 
Beginning on the day of Kadian’s death, and continuing to the one-year anniversary, and beyond, Kadian Journal is at once a record of grief, a moving tribute to a lost son, and a celebration of a life lived to its fullest.

The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz

Hanns and Rudolf

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
The extraordinary true story of the Jewish investigator who pursued and captured one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals.

Thomas Harding has shed intriguing new light on the strange poison of Nazism, and one of its most lethal practitioners... Meticulously researched and deeply felt.

Fascinating and moving...This is a remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership.

A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history.

This is a stunning book...both chilling and deeply disturbing. It is also an utterly compelling and exhilarating account of one man's extraordinary hunt for the Kommandant of the most notorious death camp of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Only at his great uncle’s funeral in 2006 did Thomas Harding discover that Hanns Alexander, whose Jewish family fled to Britain from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, hunted down and captured Rudolf Höss, the ruthless commandant of Auschwitz, at the end of World War Two.  By tracing the lives of these two men in parallel until their dramatic convergence in 1946,  Harding puts the monstrous evil of the Final Solution in two specific but very different human contexts.  The result is a compelling book full of unexpected revelations and insights, an authentic addition to our knowledge and understanding of this dark chapter in European history.  No-one who starts reading it can fail to go on to the end.

In this electrifying account, Thomas Harding commemorates (and, for the tired, revivifies) a ringing Biblical injunction: Justice, justice, shalt thou pursue.

Its climax as thrilling as any wartime adventure story, Hanns and Rudolf is also a moral inquiry into an eternal question: what makes a man turn to evil? Closely researched and tautly written, this book sheds light on a remarkable and previously unknown aspect of the Holocaust - the moment when a Jew and one of the highest-ranking Nazis came face to face and history held its breath.

Absorbing ... Thomas Harding narrates, in careful, understated prose, the story of how his great uncle Hanns Alexander hunted down the man who vaingloriously identified himself as ‘the world’s greatest destroyer’: Rudolf Höss, the Bavarian-born Kommandant of Auschwitz.Harding balances with scrupulous care the stories of the pursuer and the pursued … Le Carré is quite correct. The last section of Harding’s book does indeed read like a gripping thriller.

Hanns and Rudolf is a masterpiece. The detail is amazing, the restrained narrative brilliantly judged. It’s a classic of Holocaust history, telling of the rise of evil and the ultimate triumph of good.

An extraordinary tale deriving from meticulous research – the story of how a young Jew after 1945 almost single-handedly hunted down the Kommandant of Auschwitz.

A highly readable detective story … This is really a book about the world of Hanns Alexander…[and it is] well worth reading ... Harding has researched it thoroughly.

A remarkable book: thoughtful, compelling and quite devastating in its humanity. Thomas Harding’s account of these two extraordinary men goes straight to the dark heart of Nazi Germany.

Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

A fascinating, well-crafted book, entwining two biographies for an unusual and illuminating approach to the history of the Third Reich, its most heinous crime and its aftermath.

This fascinating book, based on the gripping story of one man’s unrelenting pursuit of Rudolf Höss in his search for justice, confirms my belief that much of the most important knowledge of the Holocaust, comes from the personal accounts of those involved. Hanns and Rudolf vividly brings to life, not only the impact of Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies on the author’s German Jewish family, forced to flee Berlin in the 1930s; but shows how an ordinary German farmer became one of the most feared and notorious war criminals in history, implementing with chilling efficiency the extermination of over a million Jews in Auschwitz. As awareness of the full horror of these dark years continues to advance, this book fills a unique and vital role.

Lyn Smith, author of Heroes of the Holocaust

This important and moving book describes the unlikely intersection of two very different lives – that of Hanns Alexander, the son of a prosperous German family in Berlin who became a refugee in London in the 1930s, and Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Well-researched and grippingly written it provides a unique insight into the fate of Germany under National Socialism.

Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Brandeis University

Thomas Harding has written a book of two intersecting lives: His great uncle, a German Jew and potential Nazi victim, and Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz. In a neat historical irony, his uncle became a British officer who tracked down war criminals, including one of the world’s worst mass murderers.  A fascinating account, with chunks of new information, about one of history's darkest chapters.

Richard Breitman, Author of The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and The Final Solution and Editor-in-chief of the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Written with the verve of a writer and the sure touch of an historian, Thomas Harding's Hanns and Rudolf is a fascinating, fresh, and compelling work of history.

A vivid account of the pursuit of justice and what happened to two men who found themselves in the chaos of evil of Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

Thomas Harding … tells the story with great verve.

An astonishing and moving story…[an] excellent book

Remarkable … A beautifully balanced double biography, admirably measured but also gripping, which offers a fresh perspective on a much-examined subject

A remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership.

fascinating, intelligent, compelling, dramatic and intimate... The style is open, clear, forthright, and sprightly. It seeks – and finds – clarity at all times, whether to events or character, and delivers everything it manages to pick out of the private archives, classified documents and more just brilliantly.

Hanns and Rudolf is a magnificent book. In an era where WWII is passing from living memory and into history, it offers both, and does so in a way which is spellbinding, poignant and harrowing.

Harding builds a compelling, remarkable picture of war and its aftermath

Hoss’s life is grimly fascinating … Hanns and Rudolf is written with a suppressed fury at the moral emptiness of men like him

Perhaps one of the finest  books on the Holocaust and the Second World War that I have read in a long time.

Thomas Harding is a journalist who has written for The Sunday Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian, among other publications. He founded a television station in Oxford, England, and for many years was an award-winning publisher of a newspaper in West Virginia. He lives in Hampshire, England.

_____________________________________ 
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
WINNER OF THE JQ WINGATE PRIZE 2015 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 
 
'A gripping thriller, an unspeakable crime, an essential history.' JOHN LE CARRÉ 
_____________________________________ 
Hanns Alexander was the son of a prosperous German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s, becoming an investigator of war crimes. 
 
Rudolf Höss was a farmer and soldier who became the Kommandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and oversaw the deaths of over a million men, women and children. 
 
The hunt was on. 
 
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. Lieutenant Hanns Alexander is one of the lead investigators, Rudolf Höss his most elusive target. 
 
In this book Thomas Harding reveals for the very first time the full account of Höss’ capture. Moving from the Middle-Eastern campaigns of the First World War to bohemian Berlin in the 1920s, to the horror of the concentration camps and the trials in Belsen and Nuremberg, Hanns and Rudolf tells the story of two German men whose lives diverged, and intersected, in an astonishing way.

Thomas Harding

Books by Thomas Harding

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