Harbours and Heroes

Rodney Lord

Troubador Publishing

£12.15

Twenty years of sailing the waters of north-west Europe have enriched Rodney Lord’s understanding in ways he probably didn’t anticipate when he and a friend took their decision to stop struggling to stay dry in a sailing dinghy on Greenwich reach but buy a cabin cruiser and go further. First, they venture up the English East Coast, then across to the Netherlands and the Channel ports before heading further south and west. Many will have done the same. Few will have explored so many other lives as well as places.

Lord includes maritime heroes such as Michel de Ruyter and cartographer Guillaume Denys; also writers, artists, inventors and statesmen -- Proust, Ravilious, RJ Mitchell and William the Silent. Unpretentious, interesting and neatly written.