The artist, the Blue Badge tour guide, the construction superintendent – join writer Barbara Henderson and photographer Alan McCredie for an A-Z glimpse behind the scenes at Scotland's iconic Forth Bridge. Packed with stories and anecdotes, meet the people whose lives are inextricably welded to the famous red girders: enthusiasts, professionals, residents, researchers, souvenir sellers, lifeboat crew, train drivers, writers and volunteers, all accompanied by images from the acclaimed photographer Alan McCredie. Whilst there are several photographic books on the Forth Bridge they mainly have an emphasis on the structure itself, not the people here and now. Made from Girders seeks to give a real sense of what the bridge means to people. This book will be of interest to people from the area or who have connections to the Forth Rail Bridge, as well as tourists visiting the area.

No. Not the Palace. Anywhere but the Palace. 12-year-old Alexander Buchan was once content, training as a falconer at Strathbogie Castle in Huntly. But when his Earl sends him to Edinburgh to the court of the newly arrived Mary, Queen of Scots, the boy finds himself lured into a world of intrigue, terror and treachery. Alexander knows right from wrong, but how can he hope to outwit the Earl's murderous messenger? Surely no one can defy such a powerful master whose wife is rumoured to be a witch! Soon, more than the boy's own life is at stake: his friend Lizzie is arrested and the the angry clouds of Reformation Scotland gather around the young Queen. It seems that Alexander must spy – or die.

The Forth Bridge was the greatest engineering feat the Victorian world had ever seen and remains, to this day, one of the great achievements of mankind. The Forth Bridge: A Picture History, tells the dramatic story of its construction using rare archive photographs.

When the Forth Bridge opened on 4 March 1890 it was the longest railway bridge in the world and the first large structure made of steel. Crossing the wide Firth of Forth east of Edinburgh, it represents one of the greatest engineering triumphs of Victorian Britain, man's victory over the intractable topography of land and water. Not surprisingly, such a vigorous rebuff of the natural order was condemned at the time by those late Victorians who resisted the march of technology, and William Morris described the Bridge as the »supremest specimen of all ugliness«. In response, Benjamin Baker insisted that its beauty lay in its functional elegance. Contrasting his masterpiece with the only comparable structure of the period, the Eiffel Tower, he concluded: »The Eiffel Tower is a foolish piece of work, ugly, illproportioned and of no real use to anyone.