New
AcquisitionsCoasting Sailorman; Captain H.A.E. “Harry” Bagshaw (with additional material by his son, Albert V. Bagshaw, Richard Walsh, ed.); Chaffcutter Books, 1998; ISBN 0 9532422 1 8; £21.95; CA 15800
The bones of the book are Captain Bagshaw’s notes of cargoes and routes, times spent loading and unloading, freight payments and expenses. The repetition reinforces the impression of a relentless pattern of nearly 30 years of passage-making from Penzance to the Humber, Antwerp to Dieppe, to earn a living. Interspersed are personal but brief accounts of the routine and untoward events of life on a sailing coasting barge, the addition of auxiliary power, two World Wars, and his family. This is all presented as a continuous and very readable narrative, with notes and many photos to illustrate technical terms, vessels and places.
Despite his concentration on the facts, a picture of Captain Bagshaw comes through as a conscientious man with great pride in a job well done and a strong sense of what is fair, particularly in his relations with his employers. He came ashore in 1945, after a war spent on the Clyde, and more than 20 years in command of the coasting barge Scone. There is a Postscript - Captain Bagshaw died in 1980, and the Scone sailed on to be derigged, decommissioned, derelict and restored again. - JT
Page prepared 14 November 2000
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