- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; First Edition edition (5 Mar 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575051256
- ISBN-13: 978-0575051256
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,079,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This is Dea Birkett's story of her voyage from Lagos, along the West African coast and across the ocean to Liverpool, as a member of crew on a working cargo vessel - the only woman on board. It traces her slow, awkward progress from being a girl in a flowery dress who walked up the gangway in Apapa Docks, Lagos, to the boiler-suited cadet called "Jella" - "small boy" in the language of the Sierra Leonean crew. The book is also a testament to the men the author sailed with, the last of those who have been working the West African trade route for over a hundred years. This was to be one of their last voyages. The shipping line has folded, and with it the way of life at sea to which Dea Birkett was a last, privileged witness. She also wrote "Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers". This book was shortlisted for the 1993 Fawcett Book Prize and for the Travel Writer of the Year Award.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This brought back quite few memories of my own days at sea in the 1960/70s and before the real decline of the Britsh Merchant Navy. This book made me reminisce about such a vanished way of life on board a ship.
The descriptions of the male attitudes and reactions to the usual situations seem almost uncannily accurate. As she so accurately describes, even during a long voyage, before docking in the UK, the crew rarely seem to go much further than the dockside bars.
I was mildly surprised at a complete lack of any obvious mistakes made by somebody writing a fictional story and how well the authoress seems to have settled into the way of life on board. I know from bitter experience just how badly some men react to the simple fact that the ship has to go to sea at some time. This affects their behaviour on board, irritating everybody else.
I would like to have met this authoress as I am sure that we could have exchanged many memories of a life at sea and places visited before the almost complete demise of sea travel. As is correctly pointed out, liners did have definite destinations and timetables, the modern cruise ships are simple wanderers.
It is possible to draw an envious comparison between the almost peaceful privacy of sea travel compared to just how loathesome air travel has now become. For anybody who has never travelled by sea this is a last despairing glimpse into a now almost, and sadly vanished, world.
Before reading this book I had expected to probably pass it on afterwards. Having now read it, the book definitely goes onto my special bookcase.
The descriptions of the male attitudes and reactions to the usual situations seem almost uncannily accurate. As she so accurately describes, even during a long voyage, before docking in the UK, the crew rarely seem to go much further than the dockside bars.
I was mildly surprised at a complete lack of any obvious mistakes made by somebody writing a fictional story and how well the authoress seems to have settled into the way of life on board. I know from bitter experience just how badly some men react to the simple fact that the ship has to go to sea at some time. This affects their behaviour on board, irritating everybody else.
I would like to have met this authoress as I am sure that we could have exchanged many memories of a life at sea and places visited before the almost complete demise of sea travel. As is correctly pointed out, liners did have definite destinations and timetables, the modern cruise ships are simple wanderers.
It is possible to draw an envious comparison between the almost peaceful privacy of sea travel compared to just how loathesome air travel has now become. For anybody who has never travelled by sea this is a last despairing glimpse into a now almost, and sadly vanished, world.
Before reading this book I had expected to probably pass it on afterwards. Having now read it, the book definitely goes onto my special bookcase.
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