Desmond Fforde is my first cousin - his Dad and mine were brothers - and he has had a lifetime association with boats and ships and sailing and exciting derring-do. He can even do those really impossible knots, can smell a line-squall twelve leagues away and knows what 'abaft the binnacle' means. To raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity he has put together a slim volume of stories about the sea.

Katie Fforde and I were at the launch onboard Desmond's Dutch Barge at Canary Wharf yesterday along with eight other Ffordes, and I thought it only just, proper, right and good to promote this exceptional cause here on jasperfforde.com, and hope that we can shift millions of copies and raise some serious wonga.

Here's the blurb:

"...These stories range from the Napoleonic wars, via ships that traded under sail round Cape Horn, to what it was like to take charge of a ship in convoy, serve in the fore-ends of a submarine or fly a Corsair against the Japanese. If you have seen a WW1 picture of a ship in dazzle camouflage, there is a description of how it came about, and the Dunkirk evacuation is movingly depicted..."

The book is available direct from the publishers who are Accent Press, one of the leading independent publishers in Wales. The book is also availabe as an eRead.

I have a single SIGNED copy here at Fforde towers which will be sent free of charge to the person who sends in the best Haiku on the subject 'Man and the Sea' to: jasper(at) jasperfforde.com.

Competition closed on December 1st 2009.

Winner: Paul Johnson, with this:

Man in a small boat
Waves crash down
Man in the big sea

Page updated December 1st 2009