ALICE THOMSON

The story of the man who strung the telegraph across Australia, and the woman who gave her name to Alice Springs. In 1855 an impoverished young scientist from Greenwich told his guardian that he was off to chance his luck in Australia - as Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs for the small colony of South Australia. With him went his young wife Alice - after whom Alice Springs would be named. For Charles Todd was following a dream - the near impossible task of stringing a telegraph wire across one of the last uncrossed colonial wilderness, and finally connecting Australia with Britain. In 1997, their great-great-granddaughter Alice followed in their footsteps. Her plan was to track the telegraph and her ancestors, from Adelaide over the thousands of miles of desert, outback, swamp and mountain that Charles Todd had crossed in the 1860s with his 400 men.

A superb study brilliant stories, hilarious observations and jaw dropping revelations about so many figures in public life we thought we knew but never understood EMILY MAITLIS Loss and adversity are part of the human condition, but an imperfect past isnt always an indicator of whats to come. This book traces a pattern: why is it that often the people with the hardest beginnings in life children who experience displacement, disease, financial ruin, abandonment or bereavement become the most successful adults? And is there something to learn from those people, who perhaps have the strongest sense of what matters most? Of Britains fifty-five prime ministers, twenty-five lost one or both of their parents as a child and 69 per cent suffered some form of serious childhood trauma. For their acclaimed podcast Past Imperfect, Thomson and Sylvester spoke to some such prime ministers, as well as pioneers and poets, CEOs and chefs, actors and archbishops, sports stars and Nobel prize-winning scientists. How did Richard Branson overcome severe dyslexia? How did Daphne Park, born in lonely, rural Tanzania, become one of Britains top spies? How was diver Tom Daley driven on to win an Olympic gold medal by being bullied at school and his fathers early death? This book brings together psychological research with scores of intimate, fascinating interviews. The resulting narrative is full of hope, and might help us all towards a better understanding of resilience, motivation, perspective and courage.