Authors Electric

Looking down the River Deben towards Felixstowe Ferry It’s grey outside with the hiss of rain. Peter Duck rocks slightly. Why should she care if there are drips on my head, on the cabin table and, occasionally, the laptop? She’s had what she demanded, which was movement; release from the captivity of her mooring. She craved a voyage, however small. She insisted. A boat always on a mooring is like a songbird in a cage. At 0500 the surface of the water was a mirror for the sky above. Not a ruffle of wind. A slow throb of engine gave us steerage way as we moved down river in the early morning light. The ebb tide carried us through Methersgate, Waldringfield, Ramsholt, then continued without us to Felixstowe Ferry and the sea. We picked up the last of the Ramsholt moorings for peace, breakfast and time to think. The quiet was astounding. Apart from the river birds. Nothing silences them. A tern settled on top of the main mast, spreading its sickle wings and forked-fan tail, opening it...

Outside the 2 sisters arts centre Meg Reid of the Felixstowe Book Festival brought a new word into my vocabulary when she asked me to ‘curate’ a day’s events at the Two Sisters’ Arts Centre on Saturday June 25th 2022. The title of the event would be Suffolk and the Sea - the vital words, for me, were books and boats..  I soon realised that the two were already linked by a footpath running from Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington, where I could moor my boat  Peter Duck, to Trimley St Mary, location of the arts centre where we would talk about books. The event began to take a yet more appealing shape when I realised how close we were to Broke House, Levington, where Arthur Ransome lived when he was writing his masterpiece We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea . Our first festival guest should be Nancy Blackett – ‘Goblin’ from the story – who could come and join Peter Duck in the yacht harbour. Book festival attendees could come and meet the boats as well. Perhaps some of them will arriv...

Once upon a time .... on Peter Duck's foredeck It began back in March when I was invited to give an after supper talk at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club in Lowestoft. An enterprising teacher, who is a member of the club, had been reading The Salt-Stained Book to some of the children in years 5 & 6 of a local primary school. She persuaded the club to invite the children in for the day – thirty-six in the morning and the same in the afternoon. We gathered round an enormous mahogany table in the club's conference room, all of us in our best behaviour. In the corner of the room I could see the box into which members used to drop their white or black balls when deciding on the election of a new member. The children learned to tie knots in the club training room and went out onto the pontoons and into the winter storage area to look at boats of many different shapes and sizes. These are children from a former fishing village, perched on the Suffolk coast, bu...