There are  444 colour & B&W pix and hopefully very few local musicians of note from the 50s and 60s are missing. There are stars too including a Nigel Grundy section from the Pier etc and a few more unseen Rod Stewart in Pompey pix. About 70 pix are posters/tickets, there are folk, jazz, skiffle & dance band sections and well over 200 of pop/beat/rock acts. It's organised in sections, chronologically with a central colour section and each section has a single page of introductory text but it's mostly just pictures.

Based largely on contemporary sources, including diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and exhibition catalogues, the book explores the various factors that brought artists to Portsmouth, and in many cases to spend much of their working lives there. What opportunities did it hold for them? What influence (if any) did the town have on their work? It is hoped that this approach will appeal as much to art historians as to those with a more general interest in Portsmouth and its history.

 The book contains more than 100 illustrations, 32 of which are in colour.

Love it or hate it- there's no middle ground in reactions to the Tricorn: the Brutalist, bold, multi-layered and multi-use megastructure built in Portsmouth between 1962 and 1966, and demolished in 2004. Celia Clark and Robert Cook explore what makes an architectural icon - and what unmade it.

A colourful pictoral Alphabet Book which takes inspiration from Portsmouth for some of the letters of the alphabet.

Thomas Ellis Owen was not a national figure but his life and work entwined with others who were. George Stephenson, Charles Dickens, John Nash all featured at one time or another. He had permanent bases in London but, at the end of the day, his loyalty to Portsmouth, and especially Southsea, kept him close to home. 

Born more than 200 years ago, the son of an ambitious and charismatic canal engineer, Thomas grew up in a huge family of talented people. Even in his own family, however, he excelled.  He attracted an unusual array of architectural and engineering commissions whilst still in his 20s. Then, after most of his birth family moved to Dublin, he laid the foundations of modern Southsea with elegant terraces, villas and curvy lanes bedecked with foliage. He also designed workhouses, schools, theatres, churches, model lodging houses, and cemeteries and, working as an engineer in Portsmouth, drew up improvements to the Camber Docks, furnished plans for the gasworks and designed the first stretch of Clarence Esplanade along Southsea seafront.

Hilsea Lido 75 gives us a chance to enjoy a pleasurable and nostaligic trip back over the last 75 years and, in the process, gives us a glimpse of the vitality and excitement that was Lido life. Jane Smith is a local historian and the author of "The Book of Hilsea: Gateway to Portsmouth".

CREATIVE PORTSMOUTH Explores the creative elements of the city through its people, community, businesses and students. By Claire Sambrook.