by Julia Jones
The Parts of a Dinghy.
If your sailing skill’s not quite as instinctive as Donny’s you’ll learn a lot from Claudia Myatt’s RYA handbook Go Sailing!
The British fingerspelling alphabet.
Image: Action on Hearing Loss.
For more information visit www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk
My Thanks
The first version of this story was written unobtrusively early one summer while I allowed my nearest and dearest to assume I was still checking footnotes for a PhD thesis. Some of the characters had begun to take shape the previous year when I’d been sitting on the edge of Alton Water reservoir in Suffolk watching our two youngest children learning to sail Optimist and Taz dinghies. But it was when I was on board Peter Duck on the beautiful River Deben that I finally came clean about what I’d been doing and asked my son Bertie, then aged eleven, to have a read. He read intently and without stopping, first in the quarter berth and then, less comfortably, in the dinghy Karl Marx, as I rowed us back up to Woodbridge.
This gave me the courage to show the manuscript to my partner, Francis. He too read it in a gulp and has never stopped believing in the story and encouraging me to keep sending it out to publishers and plugging away at the re-writes. When I admit that it has taken five years from the first draft to this final text I’m sure everyone will understand how truly grateful I am for his support.
He hasn’t been the only one. David Miller was the book’s third reader and then came Nicci Gerrard, Peter Willis (of the Nancy Blackett Trust), Richard Woodman, my mother, my brother Ned and niece Ruthie. They have been staunch allies. My son Frank managed the particularly highrisk activity of mixing encouragement and criticisms as we tramped round fields with his oldest daughter Gwenllian and various dogs.
Pippa Thistlethwaite, Anna Bentinck and Arnold Cragg read it aloud to each other beside a log fire one cold New Year and offered useful suggestions. Heidi, Olly and Aidete Carhart let me steal and distort some aspects of their lives; Ann Palmer, a former owner of Peter Duck, allowed me to use her family’s names; my youngest son, Archie, tried hard not to fidget while I read – which was depressing but salutary. I think he knows who, in the book, he is.
Georgeanna, Ros, Miles, Rhiannon,Patricia and Alice all read and encouraged. Caz Royds, Christina Hardyment and Roger Davies offered perceptive comment and practical help. (Specifically I’m grateful to the Arthur Ransome Literary Executors for permission to quote from Peter Duck on page 212.) Veronica Wheen spoke lyrically of the beauty of British Sign Language. Imogen Robertson put me in touch with David Smith who saved the book when it was foundering: Peter Willis introduced me to Claudia Myatt who enhances it. Lesley Simpson stepped in when Roger Davies fell ill. Jan Needle and Maddie Masters gave me wonderful reader responses exactly when they were most needed. I’m also grateful to John Skermer, Mel Howells, Jim Sheehan, Craig Brown, Kate Saunders and Griff Rhys Jones.
Why did I ever call a halt to the re-writes? Because Angus McKinnon finally stepped in and, after three proper editorial readings, said “Full Steam Ahead, Publish and be Damned” – or words to that effect. It was a very good moment – almost as good as that first summer’s reading with Bertie on the Deben. After that, I hoped, there would be absolutely nothing more that I needed to say or do. Except that, if you have enjoyed this story, I hope you’ll look out for its next instalment, A Ravelled Flag.
Julia Jones, Essex, 2011
When JULIA JONES was three years old her parents bought Arthur Ransome’s yacht, Peter Duck. Julia was give the quarter berth where Ransome had stored his typewriter. Boats and books have been part of her life ever since. She has five children, two wonderful daughters-inlaw and hasn’t totted up the number of grandchildren recently. She and her partner Francis Wheen own Peter Duck, Goldenray and almost as many dinghies as grandchildren. JULIA has written and edited biographies but this is her first novel.
CLAUDIA MYATT spends most of her time drawing boats, writing about them or messing about in them – fromm corales to tall ships. She has written and illustrated the popular Go Sailing series for the RYA and contributes regular cartoons to yachting magazines.
Table of Contents
Contents
HMS Sparrow, the Barents Sea, February 17th 1945
Book Stopped
Ambushed
By the Shores of Gitche Gumee
An Aid to Buoyancy
A Rescue Myth?
Awful Anna
Allies
Lively Lady
Snow Goose
Family Activity
A Wicked Plan
Answers and Questions
If Not Duffers
Low Water
T.E.A.M.
A Forgotten Hispaniola
The Black Spot
Going AWOL
The Salt-Stained Book
Dinghies in the Dark
Strong Winds
Gongs for Gold Dragon
The Word is Mum
From the Cabin Bookshelf
My Thanks
