Trophy

Trophy

For 2,000 years, recklessly ambitious people have ravaged Cumbria seeking trophies And what was the result? Invasion, massacre, famine, colonisation, environmental catastrophe, even the world s first nuclear disaster In a riveting new book, Paul Eastham tells how the history of this beautiful and intimidating border province was written by people seeking revenge, status, fame and power. But Cumbria had a knack of confounding their expectations. Glory-hunting Roman Emperor Septimius Severus tried to distract his feuding sons Caracalla and Gita from their mutual hatred by invading Scotland from Carlisle - but one killed the other anyway. Premier Harold Macmillan caused the world s first atom bomb disaster by running Windscale too hard, then he covered his blunder up and handed the blame to innocent workers. Manchester millionaires aiming for a worldwide cotton monopoly turned Thirlmere into an ugly reservoir to feed their factories - and started the worldwide environmental protest mov...