Children at Sea: Lives Shaped by the Waves

Vyvyan Brendon

Pen and Sword

£15.99

These non-fictional young people are not at sea for pleasure. 13-year old Mary Branham has been sentenced to transportation and Joseph Emidy, aged 8, has been captured by slavers. Emidy’s musical talent earns him a reasonable life in Lisbon until he is press-ganged. Coram boy George King joins Nelson’s navy, almost inadvertently; three other young boys in this study do the same, with widely-varied outcomes. The sea is both a place of work and an instrument of separation. Children of the Raj leave their parents for a chilly new life in England; 9 year old Ada Southwell embarks to Canada as a child migrant. This scholarly book combines diligent research with compassionate psychological insight to tell uncomfortable truths.