Bloodaxe Books is one of Britain's leading poetry publishers, named after Erik Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of independent Northumbria. Based at Hexham, Northumberland, its finance and administration is handled by sister company Pandon Press from Bala in North Wales. The company is internationally renowned for its quality in literature and excellence in book design. Their authors and books have won virtually every major literary award given to poetry, from the T.S. Eliot Prize and Pulitzer to the Nobel Prize. Bloodaxe Books has also broken new ground by opening up contemporary poetry to many thousands of new readers through publishing books such as the Staying Alive trilogy.

Bloodaxe Books was founded by Neil Astley in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978. Initially working from his own flat, Neil used the Tyneside Free Press Workshop for typesetting whilst also working as the sole sales rep for Bloodaxe. As a poetry reader, Neil understood the lack of diversity in poetry publishing during the 1970’s. In response to this, Bloodaxe was set up to publish a wide variety of authors and bring poetry into context to make it accessible to a wider readership. As well as diversifying the authors published, Neil Astley was inspired to develop the visual representation of publications by using full colour paintings and images, individualising each book. This not only appealed to a wider audience, but developed a specific, recognisable Bloodaxe Books publishing style. Throughout the company history, Bloodaxe has developed their output to keep up-to-date with changing technologies; producing poetry via all kinds of media, including live performance, audio, video, internet, radio, television and e-books. Working with many people and organisations (radio producers, literary editors on newspapers, festivals and events organisers), Bloodaxe Books has aimed to allow poets to be heard as much as possible as well as read on the page.

In 1982 Bloodaxe became a non-profit company limited by guarantee and Simon Thirsk joined as the company’s co-director. The offices were originally based on Newcastle’s Quayside for many years and later behind Newcastle Central station. During the 1980’s a sister company, Bloodaxe (Projects) Limited was set up to publish local interest books. Towards the end of the 1980’s Bloodaxe Books experienced some financial difficulty when three distributors they used ceased trading. To prevent future financial difficulties of this sort, Bloodaxe (Project) Limited was rebranded Pandon Press (1991) and was and still is used to control Bloodaxe Books finances.

In 1997 the operation was split three ways. Distribution was taken over by Littlehampton Book Services and sales and finance was managed by sister company Pandon Press at Bala in North Wales, with editorial, publicity and rights management moving to Northumberland, initially to offices at Elrington, Otterburn and Falstone, and from 2000 to 2014 at Highgreen Manor in the Tarset valley.

Bloodaxe’s editorial, publicity and rights office is now at South Park, Hexham, Northumberland. Sales are still handled in Bala, but distribution is now with Grantham Book Services Ltd (GBS), while book trade marketing is done by PGUK in London.

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The British North Greenland Expedition was the first large scale British led expedition covering the Greenland Ice Sheet. Led by Commander James Simpson, between 1952 and 1954 the expedition had a wide range of aims and objectives including developing understanding of geological mapping, meteorology, polar medicine, and polar logistics.

Across the expedition 30 men participated. Most were members of the military, with the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Army all being represented, with the remainder, non-military scientists. Many of the participants involved went on to have notable careers in exploration, academia, after the expedition, several members participated in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-1958. Some of the those figures included Captain Mike Banks who later wrote a book about the expedition and went on to participate in further expeditions and Peter John Whyllie, a geologist who went on to have a notable academic career in the field. Also involved was Hal (Harold) Lister who had a notable career as a glaciologist and academic including a career at Newcastle University and Stan Paterson who also went on to have a successful academic career in glaciology after the expedition.

The expedition established it's main base at Britannia Lake for the duration of the expedition with a field base at Northice. Two field teams traversed the ice undertaking work including measuring the ice sheet, gravimetry and meteorology. A mixture of dogs and sleds and Weasel tracked military vehicles were used for transportation around the ice sheet. As well as maintaining radio communications between the individual elements of the expedition, the expedition maintained radio communications with a base in London (known as PakIce) and staff at the Danish and US Air Force base at Thule. Resupply missions were carried out by parachute drop from airplane and overland from Thule. Overall the expedition acted as a test-bed and development opportunity for practices that would be used in later polar expeditions by Britain and other countries.

While the mission was largely successful in achieving it's many broad scientific aims, there were failures too. Perhaps the most notable was the crash of an aircraft onto the ice-sheet during an early re-supply mission in September 1952, which resulted in the loss of the craft and several injured crew who had to shelter in the wreckage until a successful rescue airlift attempt. There was one fatality amongst expedition staff, Captain Hans Jenson died in an accident while working in the field. Near misses included fires in the engine room of a base which was extinguished before it caused significant damage, and breakdowns and accidents involving the Weasel tracked vehicles which were used for travel on the ice sheet.