The Duck, the Hippo and the Goblin by Julia Jones
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...