Four step-by-step guides, from the first blank page to the final toast
See the booksKeeping your family safe through blackouts, shortages and emergencies
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Classic Victorian cookery books for the frugal kitchen, with notes for today
Find out moreWritten for British weddings, from the wedding breakfast to the final toast. Each book has a simple structure, real sample speeches, fill-in templates, toasts and a checklist, with no borrowed jokes and no American clichés.
A Step-by-Step British Guide to Writing and Delivering a Speech Your Daughter Will Treasure
Written by a father who has given the speech himself: how to choose the stories that show who your daughter is, welcome her new family, and stand up without your voice giving way.
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A Step-by-Step British Guide to Writing and Delivering a Speech the Whole Room Will Enjoy
The whole room expects laughter and the families expect warmth. Humour for every generation, the grandmother rule, and help for lone speakers, pairs and double acts.
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A Step-by-Step British Guide to Writing and Delivering a Speech Your Wife Will Treasure
Thank them well, then tell her what she means to you. How to thank everyone without a roll call, and speak about your wife with sincerity rather than greetings-card clichés.
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A Step-by-Step British Guide to the Duties and the Speech, from the Dress Fittings to the Final Toast
The only book in the series that covers the whole role: every duty from the dress fittings and the hen celebration to the reception, and a short, warm speech of your own.
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A Complete British Guide to Keeping Your Family Safe Through Blackouts, Shortages and Emergencies
The government asks every household to be ready for three days. That is a good start, but it does not go nearly far enough. This calm, practical guide shows an ordinary British family how to be ready for thirty days, step by step and affordably.
Paperback and Kindle, on Amazon
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A Fill-In Emergency Plan for British Households
The Guide explains what to do; the Workbook is where your household writes its own plan. A readiness score, your plan at a glance, important numbers and medicines on paper, the twelve-week buying plan with a certificate at the end, a checklist and record for nine emergencies, neighbour contact sheets and window cards. Large pages with room to write.
Paperback, on Amazon soon
Great Victorian books of thrifty home cooking, reproduced in full, with a modern note after every recipe: metric and cup measures, today’s oven settings, food-safety advice, and what the prices meant to the families who used them.
By Charles Elmé Francatelli, Queen Victoria’s chief cook. Annotated edition, edited by John Fenttiman
A royal cook’s guide to plain, thrifty cooking: 168 recipes in his own words, from soups and roasts to puddings, pies and preserves, with an Editor’s Introduction, twelve recipes to cook first, and the original Victorian advertisements.
Paperback, on Amazon soonBy Alexis Soyer, chef of the Reform Club
Francatelli’s predecessor at the Reform Club wrote for the same readers, in a lively series of letters. Annotated in the same way, with notes for today’s kitchen.
John Fenttiman is a businessman and author who lives in Cambridge, England.
He wrote The Father of the Bride Speech after his daughter’s wedding, having worked out a way of writing the speech that worked for him. The rest of the series followed, each drawing on what he saw and heard at the top table.
His business career has included many years working alongside the building industry, where he learned to plan for the unexpected. His latest book, The 30-Day Readiness Guide, is the practical guide to preparing for emergencies that he could not find.
He also edits Victorian Thrift Cookery, a series of annotated editions of classic Victorian books on cooking well on a budget.
If you have a problem that no book has yet helped you to solve, John would like to hear about it. Tell him the topic and the problem you would like solved.
If he writes that book, he will send you a signed copy, with his compliments, once it is published.