Writing

From a press story in Newfoundland, 2018 Three families, one from the UK, one from the United States, and one from the former community of Deer Harbour, Random Island, will come together this month in Newfoundland to commemorate a seafaring tragedy from the 19th century. 130 years ago, a British warship patrolling off Catalina discovered a merchant sailing ship from Wales, abandoned in fair weather, seaworthy but with no sign of captain or crew. No trace of them was ever found, and the story became known as the Welsh 'Marie Celeste' like the famous ghost ship. UK-based writer Will Wain is the great-grandson of the captain of the ship, Resolven, who has been trying to solve the mystery for many years. He was recently contacted by a lady in Alberta who told him of an amazing discovery. Will says. 'This lady told me that her grandfather and his brother were from Deer Harbour, Random Island, and they had found a body in a merchant...

In Memory of Millie, the Dog of the Title, who died in June 2016. It had been the wettest April for a hundred years. We knew that, but we’d been planning this boat trip for months. We were going to take an open Canadian canoe, tents, cooking gear and a retriever called Millie upstream from Oxford to the source of the Thames. By mid-May the unseasonal rain had swollen the river as far up as the Gloucestershire Cotswolds. What should have been an easy glide on almost still waters had turned into some sort of triathlon event. The Thames was not living up to its description of ‘a pond between locks’. When we set off, from Pinkhill Lock near Oxford, the sun had come out, but the ‘lay-bys’, landing stages where you step ashore to open the lock gates, were flooded. Waterlilies, normally sunning themselves on the banks, were drowning in the deep water. Further upstream, the Environment Agency had opened weir...

Category: Writing

From the UK to Random Island. Has a 130-year old mystery been solved?

Up the Thames with a flat-coated retriever