“This is a stirring tale, a fascinating examination of a little-known corner of WW2 history and an exquisite illustration of the importance of logistics in warfare.”

— Charles Coull DL VR

“And all around was the glory of sea and cliff and sky with their everlasting wonder of change and detail.” It’s the spring of 1940. Antony Bridges and Margaret Townsend, judged unfit for regular war service at sea because of his disability and her gender, are using the 15-ton ex-King’s Lynn pilot cutter, Mermaid, to run cargoes of gelignite and detonators across the Pentland Firth to assist the refortifying of the naval base at Scapa Flow. It’s cold, hard and dangerous work, yet Antony’s sensitivity to the everchanging beauty of the natural world and the raw power of wind and wave remains compelling.

The venture becomes more complex. They add a majestic sailing trawler and a battered metal drifter to their fleet, become ensnared by officialdom and increasingly conscious of the bravery and idiosyncrasies of the local fishermen. Their efforts are but a tiny fragment in the overall tapestry of WW2, yet the quality of their loving, working partnership and the bleakly magnificent Scottish setting makes this book outstanding.

“Brave, eloquent and unflinchingly honest.”

— Nicci Gerrard

In 1965, Clare Thompson, a 19-year-old student nurse working in a psychiatric unit, was raped on Hampstead Heath. She told no-one and buried the memory so deeply that she concealed it even from herself. She made four attempts on her life and spent the next two years in mental hospitals. There she experienced a wide range of 1960s psychiatric treatments, including deep narcosis and repeated courses of ECT. All given without her consent.

This is not a misery memoir. On one level it’s a patient’s account of a complex, conflicted period within the mental health system; on another it’s a story of personal resilience and a love story. Clare subsequently sailed the oceans of the world with her husband, Edward Allcard. Now, as she approaches her 80th birthday, she would like this story of hope to be told.

“A book to raise the sails and raise the spirits. Marvellous.”

— Libby Purves

The year is 1975. Eight young boys aged 8-13 have been variously abandoned by their parents and are living in the long term care of Newham Social Services in East London. Elsewhere, Lady Rozelle Raynes and her husband Dick have had a new cruising yacht delivered to Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex.

Rozelle wonders what this means for her beloved Folkboat, Martha McGilda. She can’t bear to part with her and Martha makes it clear that she doesn’t want to go. She tears her mainsail, runs aground, knocks Dick over with her main boom.

Two worlds come together when Martha moves to the Royal Albert Dock and Rozelle commits herself to teach the boys sailing, seamanship and navigation every Tuesday afternoon. Some lifelong, life-changing friendships are about to unfold.

“I had often wondered what it would feel like to have the boat full of children spilling coke and crumbs all over the decks and swinging like monkeys from the boom,” wrote Rozelle. “And now I knew…”

The Yachtsman Volunteers

1. The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939
   by GA Jones

2. Man the Ropes: The Autobiography of Augustine Courtauld—Explorer, Naval Officer, Yachtsman
   by Augustine Courtauld

3. From Pole to Pole: The Life of Quintin Riley 1905–1980
   by Lieutenant General Jonathon Riley

4. Maid Matelot: Adventures of a Wren Stoker in World War Two
   by Rozelle Raynes

5. We Fought Them in Gunboats (HMS Beehive Edition)
   by Lieutenant Commander Robert Hichens DSO* DSC**

6. Scapa Ferry
   by Antony Bridges

Even before the outbreak of World War Two, yachtsmen began offering their services to the Navy. They formed the Royal Naval Volunteer Supplementary Reserve (RNVSR), a unique group of amateur sailors whose willingness to serve—and their individual achievements—has often been overlooked. These memoirs tell their stories.

You may also be interested in Uncommon Courage: The Yachtsman Volunteers of World War II by Julia Jones, a study of the RNVSR as a whole, published by Adlard Coles on March 17th 2022.

The Lionesses of the Sea

1. When I Put Out to Sea
   by Nicolette Milnes Walker

2. My Ship is So Small
   by Ann Davison

3. The Sea Bird
   by Rozelle Raynes

4. From the Devil to the Deep Blue Sea
   by Clare Allcard

5. The Tuesday Boys
   by Rozelle Raynes

Strong Winds

1. The Salt-Stained Book

2. A Ravelled Flag

3. Ghosting Home

4. The Lion of Sole Bay

5. Black Waters

6. Pebble

7. Voyage North

   by Julia Jones

Claudia Myatt

• Antarctic Sketchbook

• Anglo-Saxon Inspirations

• One Line at a Time

• Sketchbook Sailor

• River Deben Colouring Book

The Allingham Family

• The Adventures of Margery Allingham
  Julia Jones

• Cheapjack
  Philip Allingham

• Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory: The Working Life of Herbert Allingham
  Julia Jones

• The Oaken Heart: The Story of an English Village at War
  Margery Allingham

• Beloved Old Age and What to Do About It
  Margery Allingham and Julia Jones

Please Tell Me

1. Please Tell Me

2. Please Tell Me More

Francis Wheen

Books

Francis is an outstanding biographer and cultural commentator. His prize-winning biography Karl Marx: A Life has been translated into 20 or so languages and his Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography has admirers world wide. Francis’s first major success was his 1990 biography of Tom Driberg and his 2002 title Who Was Dr. Charlotte Bach? continues to appeal to lovers of the eccentric.

Francis’s collected journalism 1991-2001 Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies won the 2003 Orwell Prize. His two volumes of cultural commentary How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World and Strange Days Indeed: the Golden Age of Paranoia have achieved international success.

Articles

Francis has written for Private Eye magazine for more than thirty years and is its deputy editor. Currently he contributes regular book reviews to the Mail on Sunday and also to the Literary Review, the Spectator and the Oldie.

Francis’s first job was as an office boy on the Guardian. Then, after leaving university he worked on the New Statesman magazine. He was one of the founding journalists on the Independent and has written for most national newspapers, particularly the Independent, the Observer and the Guardian where his ‘Wheen's World’ column won the What the Papers Say Columnist of the Year award in 1996. He has also been a regular columnist for the London Evening Standard.

Julia Jones

Books

Julia has published both fiction and non-fiction titles and also titles where her input has been editorial. She is the author of the Strong Winds series, illustrated by Claudia Myatt. They also worked together to produce Please Tell Me and Please Tell Me More. As a biographer she has written The Adventures of Margery Allingham (first published by Heinemann as Margery Allingham: A Biography) and Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory: the Working Life of Herbert Allingham. Her editorial input is particularly significant in the 4th edition of The Oaken Heart and in The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939. Beloved Old Age and What to Do About It is (in part) an autobiographical account of her experience as a dementia carer.

Articles

Julia is the literary contributor to Yachting Monthly. She also writes regular feature articles for the magazine as well as for other nautical and special interest publications including Marine Quarterly, Classic Boat, Classic Sailor and the journals of the Arthur Ransome Society. Her articles have appeared in the Daily Mail, the Oldie and the Lady as well as in various health and social care journals. Previously she was a regular book reviewer for the TES.

Julia enjoys blogging. She posts on the Authors Electric blogsite on the 9th of each month and regularly on the John’s Campaign site.

Sailing

The company name is an amalgamation of Francis and Julia’s boats - Goldenray and Peter Duck. (They acknowledge the cricket reference but were glad not to be out first ball.) The Strong Winds series of sailing adventure stories can be enjoyed by older children or adults. The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939 by G. A. Jones is a non-fiction account of a pre-WW2 adventure. Boats are never far away from marine artist Claudia Myatt’s Keeping a Sketchbook Diary.

Dementia

Golden Duck has published two activity books in support of John’s Campaign: Please Tell Me: A Book to Give and Please Tell Me More: A Book to Share. These are intended for people living with dementia and their relatives or professional carers to enjoy completing together. (Free page downloads are available from John’s Campaign site.) These books offer a supportive format for anyone to record their memories or make a personal scrapbook-style collection. NOT Forgotten Lives: Felixstowe 2017 was produced for the Felixstowe Book festival and is also available on the John’s Campaign site. In Beloved Old Age and What to Do About It Julia Jones, caring for her mother, learns from Margery Allingham’s experience caring for her older relatives.

The Allinghams

Golden Duck’s first publication (back in 2009) was a paperback edition of Julia’s 1991 biography of Margery Allingham. Cheapjack, the quirky fairground memoir of Margery’s brother Philip soon followed, then a a fully annotated and illustrated new edition of The Oaken Heart — a classic of wartime social history. Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory: The Working Life of Herbert Allingham is both a biography of Margery’s quietly influential father and also a significant contribution to the history of reading. Margery’s The Relay (her last completed book, never published in her lifetime) was handed on to Julia Jones, who expanded the work into Beloved Old Age.

Other Titles

Golden Duck is especially proud to have re-published Jan Needle’s Wild Wood (a richly comic retelling of Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows illustrated by Willie Rushton). It’s soon to become both a play and a BBC Children’s series.