Authors Electric

A coot scurried away across the basin, feet paddling furiously, a wary eye peering astern as I left the library building and paused at the edge of the dock, looking over its quiet space. I was naturally pleased to see the coot but was almost more interested in the colour of the water. Last time I was here Limehouse Basin was an unpleasant emerald green, algae visibly choking life beneath its surface. That word ‘e utrophication’ that I’ve relatively recently learned, sounds like suffocation, asphyxiation, atrophy, all in one killer blanket. There’s no beauty in water which looks like mown grass.  View from CA library It was worth upsetting the coot to stand still in the February drizzle when I'd finished work and welcome this (temporary?) improvement in the water colour. It’s still not blue or grey – or even caffe latte East Coast brown but it’s better than it was. (Feb 8th 2024)  Inside the Cruising Association library I'd been picking through the shelves like a godwit plun...

‘Is it any good?’ Francis asked, when he noticed what I’d been reading with such total absorption since the early hours. ‘Bally brilliant!!’ I replied, without thinking. Then I had to laugh because the book was The Lion of  Sole Bay and I was the person who had written it…allegedly. But please, before you throw this blatant puffery aside, let me explain a little more. The section I was reading, when I gave myself away, was the first of 'The Sole Bay Lectures' by MW Vandervelde. These come as an appendix to the adventure story and are not fiction, though I had, for a moment, forgotten that MW Vandervelde was a made-up character. The history he writes, however, is true – or as as true as diligent research could make it. I had simply forgotten, at that moment, who had actually undertaken the research. Checking the acknowledgements I was relieved to discover that MW Vandervelde (or me) had been reading the primary source accounts by Sir John Narborough who was a key combatant, at ...

Heading from Yachting Monthly 'RNVR Journal' 1940-45 Since the publication of Uncommon Courage: the Yachtsmen Volunteers of WW2 I’ve become more and more aware how little I know. I worked hard to research the book and can confidently say that I left out much more than I put in. That’s not hard when you’re researching from memoirs, lists, websites and histories. The source material fills several shelves; the book itself is a single volume. Even my bibliography had to be rigorously selective – only including the books I’d used directly in the finished product, not everything else I’d read along the way.  As it was, I got into trouble with the publishers for going over the contracted word count. I hadn’t fully realised how tightly managed their budgets must be and the extent to which rapidly rising paper costs could threaten the viability of a project. I felt rather sorry and amateur when I delivered 15k excess words – but I still fought like a pitbull for my Right to an Index....