Our book Jack Tar plays a role in a blog post called ‘Nelson’s Floating Menagerie’ (for November 14, 2016). This is a wonderful blog called ‘Seafurrers: True Tales of the Ships’ Cats that Lapped and Mapped the World’, which you can enjoy here.
Picture credit: “Illustration cobbled together by Ad Long”
Seafurrers is hosted by Bart the Cat, though we do suspect some human participation as well. Continue reading
Roman archaeology has been one of our long-abiding passions, even an obsession, and as field archaeologists for some three decades, we worked on excavations of several Roman sites in Britain, from rural hovels to villas, towns and fortresses. We even spent our honeymoon on Hadrian’s Wall, and have visited countless other sites throughout the Roman Empire, pored over exhibits in museums and written papers and books on Roman themes. Recently, we were very pleased to be sent a newly published book called Maximinus Thrax: From Common Soldier to Emperor of Rome by Paul N Pearson (Pen & Sword Military hardback, 2016, ISBN 9781473847033, xxiv prelims, 296 pages, illustrations, maps, appendices, endnotes, bibliography and index).
Before saying anything more, we must declare an interest. In the dim and distant past, Continue reading
In these times of sensitivity to the environment, a glass bottle washed up on the beach with a piece of paper inside is quite likely to be dumped in the nearest bin as rubbish, but it was not always so. In the 19th century such occurrences were newsworthy, and in October 1821 a report of such a bottle in a French newspaper was also published in British ones. The Graham Moore was a brig, and James Lash was her captain:
‘On the 15th ult. on the coast of St. Jean de Mont [about 60 miles north of La Rochelle], arrondissemont of Sables d’Olonne, department of La Vendée, was found a sealed bottle, containing a paper, stating, that it had been thrown from his Britannic Majesty’s ship the Graham Moore, on the 6th of July last, lat. 47d. 47m. N. long. 7d. 51m. W. Mr James Lash, an officer of the English navy, who had signed the paper, stated his intention to be to discover the direction of the currents in the Bay of Biscay.– Journal de Paris.’
In the 18th century mariners had been especially concerned with finding a reliable way of establishing the longitude of a ship at sea, but in Britain this was eclipsed by the wars with the Continue reading
The latest quarterly issue of Quarterdeck has just arrived, for September–October, always a welcome moment. Its tagline is ‘celebrating maritime literature & art’, and readers will find many books that they will want to read – from the latest ones by well-known authors to little-known gems that have been brought back into print. We are delighted to be featured on page 3, with news of the book we are writing on the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
Several pages are devoted to Julian Stockwin, whose Kydd books continue. His latest book is The Powder of Death, a new standalone novel based on gunpowder being brought to England for the first time. We’ve not yet seen the novel, but it sounds fascinating as gunpowder looms large in the Gibraltar siege. Quarterdeck is published by Tall Ships Communications under the editorship of George Jepson and is distributed by McBooks Press. To download this latest copy (and back numbers), go to McBooks here.
The 2016 summer in Britain has been somewhat indifferent – very few scorching hot days, much cloud and below-average temperatures. Exactly two centuries ago, the weather was far worse. As Jane Austen died in July 1817, her very last full summer in 1816 was a wretched one, and she refers to the rain and the cold in a few of her surviving letters. ‘I begin to think it will never be fine again,’ she lamented in early July. On 1st September 1816 William Holland, the vicar of Over Stowey in Somerset, wrote in his diary: ‘The weather has continued in the same uncertain state that it has done for sometime past. Indeed properly speaking we have had no summer, for we scarce have been a week without [a] fire throughout, I have now this very day a fire in the parlour.’ For much of the year his diary had been a litany of bad weather and dashed hopes. In his rural community, he was keenly aware of the effects of the weather on the crops. The constant rain had delayed the hay harvest considerably, and two weeks earlier he had written: ‘Rainy, windy weather confined William [his son] & I within doors – nay we had a fire tho’ in the midst of August. What will become of the corn I know not, for it does not ripen.’
This exceptional weather was not confined to south-west England, but was felt right across the northern hemisphere. Continue reading
The stretch of water between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean is known as the Strait of Gibraltar, separating Spain and Gibraltar from north Africa (Morocco). The southernmost tip of Spain (and of Europe itself) is at the town of Tarifa, and here the African coast is only 10 miles (16 km) away. Gibraltar lies some 15 miles (24 km) north-east of Tarifa, and the African coast is almost 14 miles (22 km) away. Even though the distance to Africa is greater here, the promontories of Calpe (Gibraltar) and Abyla (Ceuta in Africa) were significant in Greek and Roman mythology, as they were believed to be the mythical ‘Pillars of Hercules’.
This picture shows the Strait of Gibraltar, looking westwards. The African coast with the promontory of Ceuta is on the left. Next comes the seaway of the Strait of Gibraltar that opens into the Atlantic. The right-hand half of the picture portrays the coast of Spain, with the distinctive darker outline of the Rock of Gibraltar in front.
The Pillars of Hercules looking westwards from the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic
The myth of the Pillars of Hercules originated with the ancient Greeks and was adopted Continue reading
In days long past, while working as archaeologists in London and Surrey, we were regularly asked to give talks, sometimes as the main entertainment or as part of a programme of talks with several speakers. Rather than simply describe our discoveries, we had to illustrate them with 35mm slides, so there was a lot to prepare, especially if we had to take our own projector equipment, such as screen, projector, projector stand and extension leads. The talks were hosted mainly by local and county archaeology societies, most of whose members enjoyed archaeology as a hobby and quite often worked as volunteers on excavations. Because archaeologists were public servants (and therefore poorly paid!), we were expected to give talks as part of the job, usually with no remuneration, but we did enjoy doing them. The most memorable one was to a packed hall somewhere in the City of London, and afterwards they took us off to an old pub, leading us down dark alleyways and pointing out parts of the city that we never knew existed. That was quite magical. Continue reading
In our last newsletter, we had a competition ending on St Valentine’s Day that asked for the surname of the character Emma in Jane Austen’s romantic comedy Emma. The answer was Woodhouse. Congratulations to the two winners, who have been sent a hardback copy of our book Jane Austen’s England (the American version of Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England ).
Emma has caused problems with anniversary celebrations. It is 200 years old, but should the bicentenary celebrations have taken place all through 2015 or in 2016? Continue reading
On Wednesday 18th May 2016, we are giving an illustrated talk on ‘Jack Tar: Life in Nelson’s Navy’ at the library in Denmark Street, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 2BB, at 2.30pm. A large car park is close by. Tickets cost only £3, available from the library. You can phone and book a place, tel. 0118 978 1368. The library is open daily from 9.30am, except Sunday, and on Wednesday it closes at 1pm, reopening for events like ours in the afternoon. Alternatively, you can turn up on the day, but you may not get in!
The year before last, we gave a talk at this same library on ‘Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England’, and it was packed out. Wokingham Borough Libraries do all sorts of events for their community, and we really like the library at Wokingham itself. Our talk on ‘Jack Tar’ will describe what life was like at sea during Jane Austen’s lifetime, something she was very familiar with as two of her brothers joined the Royal Navy. Our book Jack Tar has the subtitle ‘Life in Nelson’s Navy’ for the hardback, but it was changed to ‘The extraordinary lives of ordinary seamen in Nelson’s navy’ for the paperback.
We should have added a note to say that Jack Tar is available in paperback, published by Abacus. You can find it in some bookstores, order it from bookstores or buy it from online retailers . The ISBN is 978 0 349 12034 8. It was not published in the US, but is sold there by our UK publisher. To our frustration, it seems to be unavailable on most US retail websites at present. It is available as an e-book in various forms. If you have a good public library, they will have copies for you to borrow! Click here to the ‘Jack Tar’ page on our website.
The popularity of historical fiction is riding high – novels as well as television, radio and cinema adaptations. As historians, it is difficult to switch off, because we need to know what is true and what is invention, but some readers treat fiction as a way of getting inside historical periods. This can be hazardous, since the priority of a novelist is to produce a convincing story with an authentic atmosphere, even if it means subverting facts. One of the joys of writing history books Continue reading