Latest News from Queen Anne's Fan

 2nd February 2024


Responding to the interest generated by the, "Passport Portraits of Yesteryear", posts on his blog, Martin Lloyd has now published an A4 album of black and white passport photographs drawn from his collection of historic passports. The images date from a time before regulations were imposed on how to pose for a photograph and added to the quirky originality of the portraits is the accompanying explanation of the subject's situation placed in its historical context.

This is not a book to be read at one sitting. You will look at a photograph, read the text, return to peruse the person's face and then imagine what their life was like.

1st October 2022

MARTIN LLOYD'S LONG AWAITED BOOK AT LAST PUBLISHED.
Activity at Queen Anne's Fan has, perforce, been affected by the Corona virus but Martin Lloyd has now published the book which had been so long in gestation – France at the Fringes, a wander along the borders of France.

29 June 2019

MARTIN LLOYD SELLOUT AT FELIXSTOWE BOOK FESTIVAL
Our author Martin Lloyd, writer of The Passport, the History of Man's Most Travelled Document and Neither Civil nor Servant, Twenty Fours Years in the Immigration Service, was invited to talk at the Felixstowe Book Festival. He has just finished his talk and it was a sellout. Fifteen extra chairs had to be brought in to the lecture room – the author even giving up his own chair for a member of the audience.

9 February 2019

FELIXSTOWE BOOK FESTIVAL APPEARANCE BY MARTIN LLOYD
The Felixstowe Book Festival will take place 29-30 June 2019 and authors such as Alison Weir and James Runcie will be hoping to raise their profile when they appear at the same venue as Queen Anne's Fan author, Martin Lloyd. Come to the Furneaux Suite at the Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe at 10.15 on the Saturday morning and hear this amazing raconteur hold the audience spellbound.

8 October 2018
BACK TO CHECKING PASSPORTS 
Martin Lloyd's expertise and knowledge was called upon today by the Worshipful Company of World Traders who made an attempt to break the Guinness World Record of the greatest number of different nationalities all singing the same song at the same time.

It was not his singing voice that they required; they needed somebody who could check passports, verify identities and compile the definitive list of participants' nationalities.

Goodenough College was the venue. It was a colourful and melodious event. But did they break the record? Click here to find out.

23 March 2018 
MARTIN LLOYD 'LIVE' ON BBC TV NEWS 24 HOURS 
The controversial decision to award the contract to print the new British 'blue' passport to a Franco-Dutch company prompted BBC News to call in Martin Lloyd to be interviewed 'live' at New Broacasting House... with only three hours notice.
The anchor man, Ben Brown, was fascinated by the antique passports which Martin had brought with him, at one point almost crawling across the desk to reach them.

Martin Lloyd being interviewed by Ben Brown, BBC TV News 24 Hours, at Broadcasting House on 22 March 2018

15 January 2018

LATEST NOVEL FROM MARTIN LLOYD
The Impetus Turn has just been published. Set in Bangladesh in the 1980s it tells the story of how a naive engineer sent
out to work in the country copes with
the corruption and relationships in
which he becomes embroiled.
 384pp, price: £12 ISBN: 9780 9573 63953

22 December 2017
MEDIA PANIC AS THEY TRY TO CONTACT FAMOUS AUTHOR! 
The Home Office announced today that when the present passport contract expired, the new British passport would have a blue cover. They had warned the Media the day before that they would be making an announcement but would not divulge its content.

Martin Lloyd talking to BBC Radio Scotland from Manchester.

The media companies all converged on Martin Lloyd and fought for his time. BBC TV 'Breakfast' programme interviewed him live in Manchester at 07.00 followed by BBC TV News for a filmed interview for their 13.00, 18.00 & 22.00 news slots. He then gave interviews to Radios Leicester, Sussex, York, Coventry, Oxford, Guernsey, Cornwall, Devon and Scotland followed by a race to the railway station to catch the train back down to London and out to Osterley to be interviewed live on SKY TV News. Radio Five Live and Radio Four missed their slots.

13 October 2017
DELIVERING BOOKS TO SPAIN
Martin Lloyd's new book, Fire, Smoke and Iron - Spanish Artists and the Bilbao Iron Industry is now published. This week he travelled to Spain to deliver a stock of books to the Rialia Museum of Industry in Portugalete in thanks for their ganting him permission to photograph the paintings in their museum to use as illustrations in his book.

Martin Lloyd handing over books to Anna at the Museo Rialia, Spain.

14 March 2017
RECORDING FOR BBC RADIO 4
Martin Lloyd spent the morning at the Millbank studios of the BBC being interviewed by Katy Long for a documentary programme in which passports will figure in some form or other. Title of programme and transmission date still not decided.

Katy Long and Martin Lloyd in the BBC MIllbank Studios for Radio 4

22 February 2017
FILMING FOR BBC TV 'THE ONE SHOW'
Martin Lloyd spent the morning in the London Passport Office in Victoria being interviewed for the 'One Show'. He showed many of his historic passports and answered questions about the British passport in the period from the mid 19th. century to the outbreak of the Great War.
 

The film crew at the Passport Office.

The programme is now in post production and will be broadcast probably in three or four weeks time. 

5 November 2016
NEW HARDBACK EDITION OF THE PASSPORT PUBLISHED TODAY
The Passport the History of Man's Most Travelled Document has long been our best seller. In its thirteen years of publication it has run to twelve immpressions. The new edition is now available only in hardback, responding to our customers' desires to possess an attractive and durable volume.

Martin Lloyd has updated and enlarged the text and added some illustrations to reflect the current political climate and review the latest developments in technology.
 

4 July 2016
Martin Brayne's latest book: Gone to the Continent, The British in Calais, 1760-1860 is now available. 
 

  With 302pp, 10 colour plates and 15 b&w     illustrations; copious notes, comprehensive bibliography and methodical index
it is a bargain at £14.95.

Buy your copy here.

February 2016
We have started the new year as we hope to continue: a reprint of The Passport; a reprint of Neither Civil nor Servant and at the printers at this very moment is a reprint of one of Martin Lloyd's popular 'Paris' thrillers, The Chinese Transfer.

Coming later this year will be a new book by Martin Brayne, dealing with the historical English connection with Calais. 

August 2015
Queen Anne's Fan is pleased to announce that as a result of public demand it has just reprinted the popular romance, Every Picture. You will notice that it now carries a different cover image, chosen after customer research. Happy reading!

October 2014
Martin Lloyd's best selling title, The Passport, the History of Man's Most Travelled Document, has just been reprinted for the seventh time.
 

May 2014 
Having resolved the unexpected problems we are very pleased to be able at last to announce that Martin Lloyd's latest book, Neither Civil nor Servant, is now on sale. You can buy it here, from this website. You can even read the first chapter for free! Click HERE.

March 2014
Martin Lloyd has just returned from his trip to Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand where he found a copy of The Passport in every library that he visited.

(Read his blog.)

His latest book, Neither Civil nor Servant - Twenty-four Years in the Immigration Service, will be published at the end of April and we expect a strong demand for it.

January 2014
Roger Thyer-Jones' autobiographical account, Dogs on the Runway, dealing with his life in the the world of martial arts which we published in 2012 has generated so much interest that we have just released the second impression.

Well done Roger!