Lost to the Sea: Orphaned, Apprenticed, Pressed and Prized

Set in the 1750's 'Lost to the sea' is the first in a series of sea stories charting the life of James Johnson. The son of a fisherman, he is orphaned when his entire family are drowned. He is taken in by the church and educated After a year, the boy is Apprenticed to a local shipping master and sent to sea. We follow his trials tribulations and triumphs as he struggles to cope with the harsh life, 'before the mast', on a merchant brig, and later, after being taken by the press gang, on a sloop of war.

About the Author :
Ex Navigating Officer I served 7 years mostly in the far east. I came home just in time to join in the swinging sixties music scene in London, playing guitar and singing with a wide variety of people including JAzz guitarist Diz Disley and met many musicians, and singer/songwriters; including Paul Simon, Tom Paxton, Jackson C Frank and Bob Dylan. Every summer I would escape to the coast either sailing a yacht or working as a lifeguard. Basically I was a bum, or a beat-nick as we called ourselves. As a qualified diver, I worked for the Thames and Medway Conservancy boards for a couple of years. In 1966 I went to Libya for an American Company and began mixed gas diving at 480 feet. I moved to Cyprus in 1968 and started my own diving/water-ski school, plus a bar and B&B. Due to the political situation, I moved my wife and family first to Norway, then Brazil. I returned to the UK late 1976 and bought a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. I continued to work as a diver in the North Sea, and during one particularly long saturation session; and having read every book on the rig, I decided to write my own book. It was 100,000 words and a load of rubbish. When I came ashore I joined the Katherine Cookson Northern Writers Group in the hope that I might learn how it should be done. I will let you be the judge as to how well I succeeded. In my first year I sold three plays for TV, but a divorce and pressure of work overseas meant I lost contact with my agent and stopped submitting work but I continued to write for my own pleasure. I retired to Mallorca in 2010 and was asked to host a writers group. The sheer enthusiasm of my members made me look again at some of my own work and encouraged me to take up the pen again after an absence of 30 years. I have completed and published six books in the last four years and have two more in the pipeline. I endeavour to write about places or things I have some knowledge of, which I hope lends some authenticity to the work. I do not class myself as a great literary artist, rather a storyteller or a teller of tales. I humbly submit my books in the sincere hope they give you as much pleasure reading them as I got from writing them.