Overview

Simon Hall's second book is set in the mid-1970s during the closing years of the golden age of British shipping, when cargo carriage at sea saw radical change and the romance of being at sea in old-style cargo ships came to an end. Hall's account is of five years during which he worked as a junior officer in the Far East and South Pacific. This is no ordinary memoir; the prose is vividly expressed, often shocking, sometimes elegiac as evidenced by his description of a night watch in the Indian Ocean: alone on the bridge wing in the warm tropical night, I heard the wind sing through the stays as an Aeolian harp and I felt anointed by my good fortune. His descriptions of jaunts in forgotten parts of the world are strikingly expressed and there is added poignancy from the charting of Hall's struggle against decline into alcohol abuse, expressed in a way that is in turn both sad and shocking: I ordered another cold beer and lit another cigarette, then sat with the ghost of my past dreams while the afternoon died around us and we surveyed the wreckage of all my hopes. This is an important work that captures an age now vanished, written in a style too rarely encountered.

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9781849951555

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Reviews

'His is a book of recollection and memories, rare in that unlike most such books by old sailors, he recalls the bad times as well as the good; a young man chasing Conrad and a rapidly disappearing way of life'. Lloyd's List -------------------- '...superior seafaring memoir...his compelling narrative...he vividly and entertainingly evokes the people, places and vessels he encountered, creating an accomplished work which deserves a wide audience'. Nautilus Telegraph

'His is a book of recollection and memories, rare in that unlike most such books by old sailors, he recalls the bad times as well as the good; a young man chasing Conrad and a rapidly disappearing way of life'. Lloyd's List

Author Information

Simon Hall is a Master Mariner and currently Chief Executive of a financial group. He is the author of Under a Yellow Sky which was nominated for the Mountbatten Maritime Award in 2014.

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