The Pirate of the skies

In the age-of sail, a sea captain had to anticipate changes in weather patterns. He must read the wind and waves, cloud formations and currents, but also the behaviour of the birds which provided clues to the approaching weather fronts.

The MAN ’O WAR or FRIGATE bird is one such indicator. Great flocks of frigates, flying towards land, herald an approaching storm at sea. In some places they are called ‘weather birds’.

The FRIGATE BIRDS’s name relates to both its speed and its piratical habits of attacking and robbing other seabirds. It swoops, catches and shakes its prey, stealing the food the captive birds disgorge.

Recognised by its broad 7ft wingspan and long forked tail, the male displays the distinctive scarlet pouch that is inflated during the breeding season.

World of the Written Word: FLOATING GOLD

World of the Written Word: FLOATING GOLD:
A REVIEW by JOAN DRUETT - Maritime Hisotorian and Author.

A Secret Mission for the British Admiralty, 1802
The War with the French is over ... temporarily ... but the British government is gearing up for another confrontation, this time with Napoleon.
The catch: The British government is desperately in need of money to finance this new war.
Enter Captain Oliver Quintrell, living comfortably on prize money, but eager for another command. His wishes are granted when he is given the frigate Elusive.
The catch: His secret mission is to sail into icy waters far south of Cape Horn, in search of a rumored treasure. If he succeeds, the British treasury will be saved. The price of failure is awful beyond reckoning . . .

It has recently become a popular ploy for authors who have obtained reversion of rights (and, hopefully, the pdf, as well) to re-publish their books with one of the many presses that have sprung up to meet the demand.

Margaret Muir's historical maritime adventure, Floating Gold, originally published by Robert Hale, has been given a fresh breath of life in this way -- and, in this case, most worthily so. Re-designed and re-issued in paperback (with the author's name cropped to the genderless "M C Muir"), this Hornblower-style novel is replete with maritime detail: it is obvious that Muir knows her ropes, and is comfortable with shiphandling, even under brooding skies. Ports are given good treatment, too. Her descriptions of Deception Island, the strange and ominous island in the sub-Antarctic where the Elusive finds a most unusual anchorage, are evocative and intriguing. And the story fairly romps along.

Her characters are convincing, too. Though just 32 years old, Captain Oliver Quintrell talks and acts like a man in his fifties -- which is exactly right for his era, when men aged much earlier. The "idlers" -- the tradesmen of the ship, like "Chips" the carpenter and "Bungs" the cooper -- stand out particularly well, being drawn with humanity and humor. And then there is the young apprentice shipwright, Will Ethridge, plucked from the sea like a piece of flotsam, destined to play an important role in the drama to come.

A most enjoyable read. I look forward to more from Muir's pen.

A Wind Clock

The ADMIRATLY BOARD ROOM c.1808.

The WIND CLOCK or wind indicator, on the far wall, is connected to a weathervane on the roof.

On this old photograph, taken at a later date, it appears that the wind clock has been moved.


The word ‘vane’comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘fane’ which means ‘flag’. (Wiki)

DIGGING UP THE DEAD by Druin Burch

Vintage Books - Review by Margaret Muir

In today’s western society, more bodies are donated to medical science than are required, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, procurement of human cadavers was the lucrative occupation of the grave robbers. Dissection of human specimens, alive or dead, was a professional necessity for the young man who wished to become a surgeon.

Digging up the Dead is the biography of Astley Cooper (1768 – 1841), a man whose initial aspirations were to graduate from apothecary to surgeon and thence the role of physician. A man who rose to be the richest surgeon in Georgian England.

Digging up the Dead also provides an absorbing insight into the age when surgical procedures and anatomical knowledge were severely limited; where surgery was often experimental and where the unfortunate patients faced both excruciating pain and the high risk of mortality.

Soon after commencing his seven year’s medical apprenticeship in London, Cooper became intrigued with the science of surgical procedures – more specifically the art of human dissection. He believed that only through dissection, vivisection and surgery could the mechanisms of life be unravelled.

Though he preferred to hone his skill on the partially decomposed flesh of human cadavers, he also welcomed the opportunity to dissect and examine either live or dead animals. His specimens ranged from dogs and cats to exotics such as an elephant, kangaroo and whale.

Astley Cooper was a man of startling contrasts spending an hour a day with his hairdresser and insisting on wearing the finest silk stockings to complement the shape of his calf muscles. Yet he was a man who could rush from cadaver to patient without washing the bloodstains from his hands; a man of physical charm and charisma who demonstrated unceasing enthusiasm and energy for surgery. Yet he had the uncanny ability to ignore the cries from the pain he inflicted on his patients. Without the availability of anaesthetics, it is said that many of the surgical procedures of the day were tantamount to gross acts of cruelty.

Digging up the Dead takes the reader into the often despicable, horrific yet challenging world of dissection and vivisection. The author puts into place the roles of apothecary, surgeon and physician and shows how political allegiances of the time could affect a man’s career.

Burch takes the reader on a journey back in time. He reveals a vibrant London around 1800 depicting the squalor of the backstreets, the desecrated graveyards, the fine drawing rooms of the titled classes and the mortuaries of the major teaching hospitals of the day. Included is a stark reminder of the financial and physical costs of surgery. It was a time when life and death balanced on the surgeon’s knife edge, where infection was carried on blood-stained instruments directly from cadaver to live patient.

Burch also transports his reader into the dark world of grave robbers – men known as resurrectionists, exhumers, lifters or sac ’em up men – night-workers who were prepared to chance the gallows in return for rich pickings made from the trade in fresh corpses. It was a time when life was cheap and death often came early. Where the bodies of infants and fresh foetuses were charged by the inch and ‘larges’ or adult cadavers could return ten guineas apiece. A time where hospital wards stank of the putrid stench of rot or with the scent of wine and spirits which were used as preservatives. It was a time when the poor had little access to free surgical treatment and usually died without surgical intervention. A time when had access to expensive surgical procedures but where ironically many suffered excruciating deaths at the hands of the inexperienced surgeons.

Dressing up the Dead is an intriguing and well researched biographical work written by a latter day physician. Burch interlaces his chapters with some personal experiences, and supplements this biography with a useful index and extensive bibliography. His descriptive passages pulsate with the flow of a fiction novel.

An informative and thoroughly enjoyable read.
Margaret Muir (Originally posted to Amazon.co.uk May 2008)

Five Star review of Floating Gold - Paperback

Five out of five stars in Historical Novel Society Online Review, 5 Feb 2012 by Helen Hollick "H." (UK)

This review is from: Floating Gold (Paperback)by Margaret Muir. Anyone who knows me will know I devour anything with a Tall Ship theme--so I was excited to receive Floating Gold.

Here is an example of how authors who, for one reason or another, no longer have their books in print with a mainstream publisher, decide to self-publish. Margaret Muir used to be published by Robert Hale, but with a backlist out of print, she decided to publish her books herself to keep them alive and in circulation. Good for her!

Floating Gold is a Georgian treasure hunt adventure. It is 1802 and there is a tentative peace between France and England. Captain Oliver Quintrell, as with many a sailor during times of peace, is ashore with no command and nothing to do. When he is offered HMS Elusive and a secret mission, he jumps at the chance to accept. He is bound for the Southern Ocean with secret orders, and his crew encounter storms, murder, and various adventures on the long voyage south. When they reach their destination--and the treasure hunt proper begins.

The author knows her ropes when it comes to ships and shipping: the ship-board scenes are accurate and give a real feel of being at sea; her characters are believable--and the action, vigorous.

My only comment is that the edition I received had been incorrectly typeset with double spacing between paragraphs. While this in no way detracted from the story, it did spoil the look of an otherwise superb book--I believe it has now been re-typeset though, so all new editions reach full mainstream quality.

Had Floating Gold not been a republished, previously mainstream novel, I would have made this my editor's choice. HNS rules state books must be newly published, however. So very highly recommended must suffice.

Helen Hollick UK Editor for Indie Published Historical Fiction
HNS Reviewer

‘NELSON’S FIRST FAREWELL’ - Joy

This painting, GW Joy imagines the 13-year-old Nelson - whose mother died when he was nine - dressed in his new midshipman's uniform and saying farewell to his grandmother on his first departure for sea in 1771.
It was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1883.

A couple of years ago, I saw a framed print of this picture in an antique shop window, but it was over $100 so I walked on. Now I kick myself for not buying it!

"The Shyppe Swallower" - aka The Goodwin Sands

"Straight out seawards of the old town of Deal lie the Goodwin Sands, basking in the sun like some marine monster…only now and then it emerges out of the sea to seize with hungry jaws its prey of men and ships, with huge feelers and claws reaching from its broad waist towards Deal, while the tail of this grisly terror coils itself away to the southward, full many a mile of sea."

The Cry from the Sea – Treanor c.1900)

The Goodwin Sands is a giant watery grave that over 800 years has claimed thousands of ships and many more thousands of lives.
This body of sand - only visible at low tide - is not only treacherous but is insideous as it shifts it's location without warning.

It is the nemesis of seamen and in the seafaring novel, FLOATING GOLD has a special significance for Lieutenant Parry.

Children aged 6 - forced to work down the mine

CHILDREN WORKED 18hrs a day for 5 pence a day – AT SIX YEARS OF AGE.
In the 1800s boys of not more than 6 years worked as trappers opening traps/doors in various parts of a coal mine.

They remained in the pit for 18 hours every day, and received 5 pence a day each as wages. Unless a cart passed, the child was in solitude and total darkness the whole time. He went to work at 2 am and for most of the year did not see daylight apart from him one day off.

Girls also worked down the mines and in the 1838 Huskar Pit Disaster (Yorkshire) 26 children drowned. Of the 11 girls, 3 were aged only 8 years and of the 15 boys, 8 were under 10 years old. In the records of one north of England pit disaster, one of the boys was aged only six.

I found this information when I was researcing my latest novel, The Tainted Prize - the sequel to FLOATING GOLD.
So what does a child working down a mine have to do with a sailing ship heading for CAPE HORN? Time will tell.

Want to read the OPENING PAGES?

To read the first few pages of FLOATING GOLD, click on the book's cover and "LOOK INSIDE".

Link to:- Margaret Muir's guest spot on Helen Hollick's Blog

Please Welcome.... My Guest....: Floating Gold (well you know me and anything nauti...: Please welcome my guest, author Margaret Muir : Dear Helen, Like you, I share a love of adventure on the high seas. Thank you for invitin...

On-line Review of FLOATING GOLD

The following review appeared today in the on-line reviews from the Historical Novel Society:
FLOATING GOLD
Margaret Muir, Grindelwald, 2011, £11.60, pb, 236pp, 9781447670209

Anyone who knows me will know I devour anything with a Tall Ship theme—so I was excited to receive Floating Gold. Here is an example of how authors who, for one reason or another, no longer have their books in print with a mainstream publisher, decide to self-publish. Margaret Muir used to be published by Robert Hale, but with a backlist out of print, she decided to publish her books herself to keep them alive and in circulation. Good for her!

Floating Gold is a Georgian treasure hunt adventure. It is 1802 and there is a tentative peace between France and England. Captain Oliver Quintrell, as with many a sailor during times of peace, is ashore with no command and nothing to do. When he is offered HMS Elusive and a secret mission, he jumps at the chance to accept. He is bound for the Southern Ocean with secret orders, and his crew encounter storms, murder, and various adventures on the long voyage south. They reach their destination—and the treasure hunt proper begins.

The author knows her ropes when it comes to ships and shipping: the ship-board scenes are accurate and give a real feel of being at sea; her characters are believable—and the action, vigorous.

My only comment is that the edition I received had been incorrectly typeset with double spacing between paragraphs. While this in no way detracted from the story, it did spoil the look of an otherwise superb book—I believe it has now been re-typeset though, so all new editions reach full mainstream quality.

Had Floating Gold not been a republished, previously mainstream novel, I would have made this my editor’s choice. HNS rules state books must be newly published, however. So very highly recommended must suffice.

--Helen Hollick