Fringed With Mud & Pearls: An English Island Odyssey

Greece has its sun-soaked Cyclades and Dodecanese; Scotland its Northern Isles and rain-drenched Hebrides and Ireland the Arans and Skelligs. And what has England got? The isles of Canvey, Sheppey, Wight and Dogs, Mersea, Brownsea, Foulness and Rat. But there are also wilder, rockier places – Lundy, the Scillies, the Farnes. But there are also wilder, rockier places – Lundy, the Scillies, Holy Island, the Farnes. These islands and their inhabitants not only cast varied lights on the mainland, they also possess their own peculiar stories: the Barbary slavers who once occupied Lundy; the ex-major who seized a wartime fort in the North Sea and declared himself Prince of Sealand; the wrecked munitions ship off the Isle of Sheppey that one day might unleash an unimaginable cataclysm, and much more besides. He also describes his encounters with island wildlife, from puffins to porpoises, and recounts the varied ways in which England’s islands have been formed, and how they are constantly changing.

About the Author :
Ian Crofton was born and raised in Edinburgh, and now lives in London. He has written a number of works of popular history, including A Curious History of Food and Drink and Scottish History without the Boring Bits. His Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable was described by the Times Literary Supplement as 'a lightly erudite and well-informed work of eclectic scholarship'. In 2014 the Daily Telegraph selected his Walking the Border as one of its travel books of the year. Ian Crofton also contributes regularly to the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, and in 2015 was awarded the Club's W.H. Murray Literary Prize.

Review :
'A fascinating and charming reverie on the impermanence of our Island’s islands' 'There is real poise and poetry in [Crofton's] writing, sentences that lift the reader's spirit like the extraordinary power of the birds' 'In 2014 Ian Crofton followed England’s northern frontier with Scotland. Now he turns to the country's other edges, specifically to those parts that have become detached – including Lindisfarne and the Isle of Wight, Eel Pie Island and the Isles of Scilly' 'a fascinating study about what it means to exist on the fringes' 'A really engaging…armchair-travel read' 'A companionable and oddly compulsive book... Ian Crofton throws himself into this eclectic collection of islands with gusto, finding fascinating tales to share even from the most benighted urban backwaters.'