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A Silent Witness

22nd August 2013 By matt_care

A Silent Witness
A Silent Witness by R Austin Freeman; Picture from ‘Good Reads’ website

I am still old fashioned enough to like a ‘proper’ book – card covers, paper pages, maybe a nice dust cover with a picture on the front, perhaps a bit thumbed. My good lady, though, has moved on from all that and uses one of these electronic ‘Kindle’ books onto which she downloads all manner of reading from old favourites and classics to stuff she just ‘might fancy’, especially in the murder mystery line. To this end Kindle is supported by a wonderful project named Gutenburg which is set up to commit all out-of-print books to Kindle format. You can get pretty much any book which is old enough for the copyright to have lapsed, for free, onto your Kindle.

 

I was sitting there minding my own business the other day when she asked whether I had 5 minutes spare. Would I like to read “this” she asked, you might like it. It turned out to be a couple of part chapters heavily featuring a Thames barge. Our hero had been subject to an attempted murder and dumped in the river, but he is revived by the cold water and struggles back to the surface only to be nearly mown down by a barge under tow in a string of barges, he is clonked by the leeboard but grabs on and struggles aboard. The sequence is obviously written by someone who knows barges and is pure delight. He clambers down into the aft cabin where he is eventually discovered by the Skipper and Mate who clean him up, get some tea and gin down his neck and put him to bed in a bunk. By the time he wakes up they are in the Estuary and as the story goes on he spends some time with them becalmed off Margate out by the Goodwins before being landed, reasonably fit, in Folkestone.

 

The book is “A Silent Witness”, one of R Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke Mysteries. My wife tells me that our hero is a locum doctor who has seen, unawares, an aspect of a murder victim’s corpse which, was he to put two and two together, might let him discover the murderer’s identity AND know that the corpse shown to doctors was not the man they had thought they were examining. I know – all nice and complicated, but if you want to read the whole thing I’ll let you go on Gutenburg yourselves and download it to your Kindles. I just liked the barge-y bits as my wife knew I would. Thanks Liz for passing that one to me. Good hunting.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: copyright, Dr Thorndyke Mysteries, Goodwin Sands, Kindle, Margate, Project Gutenburg, Silent Witness, Thames Barge

Sam Pepys’s Knees

30th August 2012 By matt_care

By coincidence, my Good Lady is reading her way through Pepys’s Diaries on her ‘Kindle’ and comes across references to our Sam attending meetings at The Naval Office with Mr Dean  where the ways of “raising a Bend of Timbers”. The King’s Navy (Charles 2) were short of wooden knees for ship building. On June 22nd 1664 Sir William Petty intimated that “it seemed by the scarcity and greater rate of knee timber that nature did not furnish crooked wood enough” and they discuss raising bent timbers “by art” (i.e. by special growing techniques. It is 1664 and we are preparing for war with the Dutch. The Navy is so short of provisions that they are trawling through the town looking for stuff to beg borrow or steal. The Navy is not funded by the Government but by the King who is allowed to raise £200,000 p.a. from taxes to fund it and the King is ‘a bit profligate’ (he’s running 2 mistresses and loves art and fine things) and he’s surrounded by chancers who should be running the Navy but are helping Charles to party. Pepys is sickened that they ‘do not have their mind to business!” All the good, efficient guys had been sacked along with Cromwell. Proper history!

 

Hilary and the RAF winchman
Hilary and the RAF winch-man who dropped in from the helicopter. Manna from Heaven? Picture by Sea Change Sailing Trust.

Meanwhile in 2012, Cambria Watch’s Diary (Hilary Halajko of Sea Change Sailing Trust) has it that they were “under way from Stangate Creek at 7am and anchored in the Swale at 11ish. It’s been blowing a gale and is pouring with rain! We are playing cards in the dry. Looking at tomorrow’s forecast we are thinking of leaving at 5 a.m. (this morning, Thursday 30th) Essex bound and hoping to escape the worst of tomorrow’s weather.” I hope you did, Hilary. It’s half 9 here now in County Roscommon and the sun is splitting the stones. We have a nice day at last! Sea Change have also posted some nice pictures on their Facebook feed of the latest Crew (the youth trainees) having a brilliant time doing their stuff, steering the barge, rowing the barge-boat, ‘cheesing’ the warps and swimming in the sea.

 

Tomorrow, Mevagissey Toshers. Yes, really.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: A Bend of Timbers, Kindle, King Charles II, RAF, Sam Pepys, Stangate Creek, The King's Navy

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Cambria Trust

2 weeks ago

Cambria Trust

Cambria Trust added 3 new photos.

The baggywinkle has been fitted to the barge to stop the mains'l rubbing on the wire when brailed up
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The baggywinkle has been fitted to the barge to stop the mainsl rubbing on the wire when brailed up
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hah never found out that thats what it was called!

2 weeks ago
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Can I have a bit for the receding hairline!!

2 weeks ago

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took a few hours to make it

2 weeks ago
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Cambria Trust

3 weeks ago

Cambria Trust

Cambria Trust added 3 new photos.

On the way into maldon, lowered down and Steve (Stitch) North Sea Sails repairing the mains'l
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On the way into maldon,  lowered down and Steve (Stitch) North Sea Sails repairing the mainsl
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Can’t wait to sail her soon

3 weeks ago
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well done stev thanks

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