Fiona Fraser – författare

A pictorial history of Birmingham Town Hall, showing the many events, occasions and people to which it has played host.Birmingham's magnificent Town Hall has hosted events of every kind and variety during its long life. Now, after a 35m refurbishment and restored to the original 1834 design, it reopens in October 2007 - an occasion which this pictorial history commemorates. Lavishly illustrated with some 250 pictures, it recalls many of the astonishing events and occasions that the Hall has witnessed in its 173-year history. These range from royal visits by Queen Victoriaand subsequent monarchs, outsize banquets, usage in wartime, legendary speakers including Charles Dickens and the many famous personalities of each decade, even a riot. The Hall's amazingly rich musical history is also traced, from the days when Mendelssohn, Dvorak and Elgar conducted their new works in person, through appearances by every international musician of subsequent decades right through the phenomena of all night jazz and the coming of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, to its temporary closure in 1996.