Authors Electric

De-censoring, un-editing, dis-interring and resisting the temptation to airbrush Catherine Hichens  with a portrait of her husband by Peter Scott Rather late in the process of preparing the HMS Beehive edition of We Fought Them in Gunboats (WFTIG to its friends) I decided that it felt a little like restoring an old painting – scraping off accumulated layers of nicotine, dust or flaky varnish to reveal the freshness and accuracy of the original. I imagined seeing as if through new eyes, being transported back to the artist’s studio or the picture’s first unveiling, spotting fine detail that had been buried under the residue of time. I know nothing about picture restoration so I googled a specialist Fine Art site and was immediately taken aback by the plethora of potential problems and promised expert techniques to address them. Was my painting torn or punctured; stained or discoloured; cracked and flaking; overpainted or altered? Had it been damaged by fire, smoke, mould or wate...

On the night of 12/13 April 1943 Lieutenant-Commander Robert Peverell Hichens, Senior Officer at HMS Beehive , the Coastal Forces base in Felixstowe, Suffolk, was at sea. He was leading a unit of four motor gunboats (MGBs) protecting motor launches (MLs) of the 51st Flotilla - also based at Felixstowe -  who were mine-laying off the Dutch coast.  When their job was done, the MLs returned to Felixstowe while the MGBs went on the hunt. They stalked and attacked an enemy trawler (an armed offensive war vessel, not some innocent fisherman) and a gun coaster. The waters off the Netherlands and France were, at that time, an essential supply route for the occupying German forces, therefore a regular conflict zone for the British Coastal Forces. Peter Scott gave these fierce, small scale fights a collective title, The Battle of the Narrow Seas. On this night ‘Hitch’ and his small group had silently manoeuvred up wind of the enemy vessels, then sped at them out of the darkness, engines...

Watching the Channel 4 journalists every night, telling us about the wonderfulness of the NHS and woefulness of the government, prompts thought about earlier reporting in a time of crisis. I'm currently researching WW2 naval history and have felt surprised by the number of books (and films) describing active service which were published when that service was still active -- and the end of the 'story' not known.  The naval officers whose lives I’m writing about were volunteers so it’s probably not surprising that some of them took to their pens to try to make sense of their new existence – despite censorship and the Navy’s initial attempt to ban the keeping of diaries. These volunteers were not going to be dependent on the goodwill of the Lords of the Admiralty in their future careers so could afford some mild assertions of independence.  It wasn't long before the Navy  decided to make the best of this. Publication could be facilitated -- if the content was accepta...