Eight Bells and Top Masts

Faber & Faber
Eight Bells and Top Masts

In the late 1950s, an old tramp ship set sail from Amsterdam for the Far East. For nearly two years, she would tramp from port to port, never quite knowing where the next cargo might be or where it would be taken. Grubbing for trade, she sailed a complete circumnavigation of the globe. Aboard her was a young lad from the Kent marshes. He simply wanted to go to sea. Faithfully, in old school notebooks, the lad recorded what he saw, felt and did; moments of magic and moments of fear. Here is the often moving and often hilarious diary of that epic voyage.