Antony Bridges

This in just one of the thousands of accounts of personal experiences of World War II that were published in the fifteen years or so following the close of that conflict. In those days there were readers of course, but you get a sense that the real motive in setting down these stories was to give expression and meaning to something that was bigger and more intense than anything that followed in their lives.

The cover of the 1980 paperback edition claims that this is the story of the crew of a small boat (a Cutter) defying the 'might of the Luftwaffe'. But this small boat wasn't at Dunkirk, or running the blockade into occupied Norway or Brittany. In fact it is the story of a couple who ferried cargoes of explosives around the coast of Scotland in the early years of World War II where the main (and almost continuous) hazard they face is shipwreck on the dangerous stormy seas. And of course the hazards presented by their cargo, and yes, enemy bombing.

The strength of this book is that the author makes very little of his own or his partner's exceptional courage and fortitude. In very British style he shrugs it off, saving his remarks about their own role to reports of his own incompetence (at times), and his unfounded reputation as a war 'profiteer'. The story he tells, and which makes this book, is of storms, and of men at sea who work in them in wartime and peace, in small boats and ships.

Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in maritime history, and particularly in relation to the seas around Scotland and the Orkneys, and for those who collect stories of ordinary folk who did extraordinary things in times of war and crisis. The Bridges apparently made a very quiet life after the war, retiring to the south coast of Ireland and writing a series of books about fishing, until at last the sea - frustrated so many times before - took both of them into its embrace in 1976.… (meer)