And at Book Dragon: https://www.thebookdragon.co.uk/
Welcome to Fusion and 1513. It comes out of Eskdale in North Yorkshire, England. Have a look at the enamels, stories and verses; also details of my Tudor novel, ‘Tom Fleck’.
The historical adventure, ‘Tom Fleck’, is set in the year 1513. In 2013 we saw the 500th anniversary of the great events that determined Tom’s future. I’ve completed a sequel – ‘The Black Caravel’. It takes up the story of Tom Fleck and Rachel Coronel twentythree years after they met – and we meet their children.
‘The Black Caravel’ is now displayed on Amazon.
And in May 2018, “The Best of Days” became available; it is largely a memoir of my time at sea. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Days-memoir-sea/dp/1981922954/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Or here: Book Dragon
The sequel to ‘The Best of Days”: My latest book appeared on Amazon on 23 Sep 2020. The title comes from advice given when I went to sea: brother-in-law, an engineer with Elder Dempster, cautioned me to never be cynical – ‘You’ll see wonders’, he said. ‘You’ll See Wonders’ is the sequel to my first memoir, ‘The Best of Days’. It has been a pleasurable two years in the writing, and I’ve enjoyed trying to write with the spirit and atmosphere of the time. It is not autobiography, but memoir – which allows for scenes and character to be built where memory gives only snatches and fragments of conversation and visual recall of sixty years ago. I’m now cogitating around a possible book 3, whilst Pieris rapae is out there, in the sunshine, laying her little lime-green eggs on my cabbages. The cover of “You’ll See Wonders” is from one of the last paintings by my old friend and venerable man of the sea, Bill Wedgwood of Robin Hood’s Bay – he did it for the book. Though he did not see it finished, I passed him chapters as they emerged.
1513 fusion 
Hi Harry
I picked up Tom Fleck from a book stall on Arran earlier this year. Today as a travelling day for me from Cork in Southern Ireland, to Bosham in southern England. It’s 0630 and I read all night. Thank you for such a glorious tale of love amongst the gore of battle; heart-warming and uplifting in current strange times. Over the span of 500 years, we have learned little from history and love endures. I look forward to reading more about Tom and Rachael and visiting your part of the country next year.
Kind regards and many thanks
deirdre O Sullivan
aghada
cork
Hello, Deirdre
Your message makes a lovely start to the day. Writing can be a solitary experience, and so it is a delight to hear from a reader who has been moved by a story, particularly as ‘Tom Fleck’ remains my first and most loved book.
I’ve just begun a final seagoing memoir. When that is complete, I hope to revisit the Tom Fleck story and make it a trilogy. Time treads on, so we can only keep a steady hand on the tiller and see what comes.
May your travels bring you joy. Best wishes, Harry
Hi Harry, lovely to meet you in York today on the City Walls. We have just bought your books. Best wishes, Murray and Jill
Hello, Murray. Yes, our meeting has stayed in memory as a highlight of our visit to York. My response is late because we have been without internet for 3 weeks… a contractor wrecked our cable with a digger. I hope the stories are absorbing. Please leave a review or comment on Amazon if you are inclined… amazon’s algorithms feed on them and push the titles higher in the search ranks.
Best wishes to you and your good lady.
regards
Harry
Hello Harry! I’m Miguel, from Northern Spain. I bought your three Merchant Navy books last summer and it’s the best money I’ve spent in years! I’m enjoying them very, very much. I’ve finished the first one and I’m already reading the second. In my humble opinion, you are a great writer. Can’t wait to buy the fourth book of your seagoing memories, I understand that you’re working on it at this moment. Thank you very much for writing such beautiful books.
Kind regards.
Miguel
Hello Miguel. Your note came on a morning of wet and chilled mist, and immediately the sun came out. Thank you for the heartening comments. For a writer, it is wonderful when a reader takes the trouble to get in touch. I’ve been working in the garden, but this afternoon I’ll work on the next chapter (set in Calcutta 1960).
best wishes
Harry Nicholson
Thank you very much for your kind comment, Harry. I wish you fair winds and following seas.
Miguel
Harry, I have just finished reading the three books you wrote of your sailing experiences from a young entrant into the Merchant Navy with great pleasure. I have had no experience of your profession at all, but my step-father had been in the Merchant Navy as a young man, and I at the age of 13 and 14 sailed with my family out to New Zealand and back (P&O Orient’s ‘Orcades’ on the way out, ‘Shaw Savill’s Akaroa – ex-Royal Mail’s wonderful ‘Amazon’ – on the way back) which gave me a taste of the last days of the liners which has stayed with me all these years.
My step-father was a Marine Electrician, but I am ashamed to say that I remember none of the companies he sailed with, except right at the end : the ‘Jamaica Producer’, the banana boat that did the run out to the West Indes. He mentioned once Watts Watts as well. He had been in the Malta Convoys during WW 2 and had been lucky enough to survive those, although I believe his ship had been been torpedoed, and had seen the sinking of the HMS Barham.
I enjoyed your account of your journeys and experiences, and I liked your observations on nature in the places that you visited. But it is ship-board life that I found particularly interesting. The fun times and the tense times of bad weather one hears much about; but the boredom, the heat and hardship is rarely mentioned in other accounts I have read. You also touch on the loneliness and the failed relationships of sea-farers: my step-father’s first marriage failed because he was just so often not there.
Thank you for bring that all alive. Another interest of mine is the Fall of Singapore and I look forward to reading your account of the SS Vyner Brooke escaping the Japanese. I am a great fan of Singapore and Malaysia and am lucky enough to have been in Kuching for the opening of the Brookes Family museum of the history of Sarawak a couple of years back, as a friend was involved in curating the exhibits.
I should say that I also want to visit Hartlepool as well, now that I have read your memoires ! I understand that they have done a good job of restoring the old town and recapturing its marine history.
Enjoy your well-earned retirement (I am a younger retiree than you and love every day of it !) and thank you again for your eloquence and for your memories.
Mark Preston
Bern, Switzerland.
Hello Mark. It’s a delight to read your response to the memoirs and to learn a lttle of your step-father’s career. We are in a cottage in Cumbria this week, so I’m late in reply…. the internet is hit and miss here. I’m pleased you’ll venture into the Lt Mann memoir – I felt it was too vital a story to be lost. I’ve lodged the original foolscap with the Australian Memorial Archive as it seems so important.
The next and final seagoing memoir stands at the halfway point. I hope to complete it before next Spring. After that, I may return to Historical Fiction… who knows?
Thanks again for getting in touch. It is a delight to hear from a reader.
regards
Harry Nicholson
Hello Harry, just downloaded “Green Linnet” and couldn’t wait to read “Hokkaido the Noo” – great title. Doubters should chat to the Motomachi bar girls, any of whom will tell them that “Auld Lang Syne” is an ancient Japanese folk song.
Thanks for the book. John, ex RO (’68-’92).
PS Meandering through your blog, I saw a mention of Lythe – my Uncle Tine, local Bobby in Loftus and Staithes born and bred, was riding down Lythe Bank and saw a ghost come out of the cottage on the right hand side , cross the road and disappear. Spooky!
I’m pleased you have the Linnet! That spooky cottage on Lythe bank might be the gatehouse to Mulgrave Castle – if not, then it will be the cottages at the bottom, leading into Sandsend. My wife’s family lived at Sandsend in 18th/19thC when the place was busy burning alum shale for the dye industry – now it is all costly holiday homes. Our daughter’s father-in-law looks after the tiny church there.
Thanks Harry. Think it’s the lodge, passed it many times but never stopped. Fond memories of the Hart Inn in Sandsend. Sorry I’m unfamiliar with this mode of comms.
Really enjoyed your books Harry. I too was a Sparky (PMG 1, not one of those MRGC’s). GTZM, IMRC, Redifon, GKA thence Silver Line. Could relate to your experiences so eloquently recalled.
TKS OM
(Chris)
Thank you, Chris. I am busy with book 3 and so your post has spurred me on. I don’t have a title for the current book yet. It is heartening to have a response from a reader – writing can be such a solitary pursuit. If ever you are inclined, please leave a brief review note on the book’s Amazon page. Amazon’s algorithms are much stimulated by a new review, and tend to promote the title. I hope all is well with you.
Best wishes
Harry
Hi harry, I’m interested in your radio days at sea, do you discuss the equipment you used in any great detail?
Hello, Stephen. Where I discuss the radio gear it is usually from an operational point. I rarely go into detail about circuitry (you may well be interested in such matters – but my memory is not detailed). I touch on propagation matters occasionally – the Heaviside layers and such. Fault finding – particularly on the radar – is gone into sometimes. Even so, a couple of readers, who are not of my background, have found the technical sections too much for them – and they skip those. I do what I can to preserve some flavour of those days and pleasure to the reader.
Hello Christopher: I’ve an anthology ‘Green Linnet’ on Amazon free until 29th. It has sea stories etc. It is here: A chance to glimpse the curious stories that I write.
Hello Harry,
I just finished your two Memoir of the Sea books and really enjoyed them. Love your writing style. I came from a small rural town, had no money and joined the U.S. Navy at 17. I spent 9 months in Radio School, code 22 wpm, and in 1963 was assigned to the USS Norris DD859, a Destroyer. My experience as a Radioman was quite similar to yours as I went thru the Suez Canal, Red Sea, refueled in Aden and up the Persian Gulf to Iran, and many other ports. Your accounts of liberty (shore leave) in various ports brought back many memories as a young sailor without much money. If you think storms at sea are bad in a “large” merchant ship, try it in a “Tin Can”, about 300 ft long 30 ft wide. Boy do they roll.
Thanks so much for two very fine books. I went on to a very fine career with the Government and am now retired.
Charlie
Hello Charlie,
I am delighted that you were moved to write – thank you for the affirmation. Writing can be a solitary pursuit, so it is heatwarming to hear from a reader, and also good to hear of your own career.
After seagoing, I took work in early and primitive Video Tape recorders in commercial TV studios. That career lasted 30 years and closed with me as engineer in charge of Europe’s largest drama studio. I’m retired now and happy writing, making art enamels, and growing veg for the kitchen, near Whitby, in this blessed corner of North Yorkshire.
I’ve just issued a revised version of an anthology: ‘Green Linnet’ – short stories etc. Now I’m back to vol 3 of the sea memoir, for which I don’t yet have a title.
If you are ever inclined to post a brief review or comments on the memoirs on Amazon, please feel free. Amazon’s algorithm feeds hungrily on new reviews and promotes the book to readers it deems interested.
Take good care in these strange times.
regards
Harry
Hello Charlie. I’ve a free anthology ‘Green Linnet’ free for download until 29th. After a digital struggle, I’ve managed to upload the proper version of ‘Green Linnet’. The ebook anthology is free to download until Thursday. A chance to glimpse the curious stories that I write.
Hello Harry, I have just finished reading both of your Merchant Marine memoirs. As a fellow ex-mariner of a somewhat later vintage (I sailed as an engineer 1961-67), I’d like to say how much I enjoyed your books, and how much of your account rang true to my own experiences. My first ship was an American-built Liberty and my last a Canadian-built Liberty also, with turbine and diesel propelled ships in between. When stopped sailing I started a ship-repair company which kept me in touch with the world of ships and ships’ crews. I must say we have been fortunate to sail at the time we did when things were relatively peaceful the working conditions not as harsh as during the previous generation and our stay in port was more than the few hours of the present day. Now, in retirement I’ve published three books in which most of the content is derived from the sea experience.
Best wishes for a Healthy and Gratifying New Year.
All the best,
Theodore Pitsios
Splendid to hear from you, Theodore. I’m under the weather with covid this last week, so you have cheered me up. Yes, we had the best of times in our seafaring – I could do it all again. I went from the radio room into early TV studio engineering and ops, and did well, ending up in charge of the biggest drama studio in Europe – life at sea in our formative years did equip us well for the future.
I’m pleased to know you are still writing – it is a stimulating pursuit that probes the creative mind and keeps it young. Once I complete my series of memoir I’d like to return to historical fiction saga – I miss Tom Fleck and his adventures.
Keep safe and well.
Harry
I really enjoyed both your seagoing memoirs Harry. I spent just five years at sea in the mid Seventies as an engineer with BP but so much of your experience chimes with mine., though runs ashore were few and far between on a tanker. It was great to discover that the dreadnought kit wasn’t a figment of my memory, either, no-one I’ve mentioned it to believes it existed. When I left the sea I went to the upstream oil business and a few years later was running some of these cities in the sea that will soon be history; all the challenges of a ship without the propeller. Many now being scrapped in Hartlepool, of course.
Thank you, Paul. Writing is a solitary pursuit and so it brings a rush of warmth to have a response from a reader. Book 3 is two-thirds complete and may be in print by the summer if all goes well.
Re the rigs – we’ll be driving to Hartlepool this weekend, so I’ll look out for what is berthed in Graythorpe drydock. They keep busy. Brocklebanks often used that drydock – it was delight to catch the bus for home every night.
best wishes
Harry Nicholson
Sleights
Whitby
Hello Harry, I have just finished reading both of your Merchant Navy memoirs. As a fellow R/O of a somewhat later vintage (1971-81), I’d like to say how much I enjoyed your books, and how much of your account rang true to my own experiences 10 years or so later. I left the sea in 1981 because I could see the writing on the wall for the British merchant fleet, and I count myself lucky to have enjoyed the last few years of the golden age of British shipping. I look forward to the next instalment of your memoir and wish you all the best.
73 om, tu and see u
Hello, Clive. Thank you for the positive comments on the memoirs, your message has lifted my spirits. I’m encouraged to continue with the third book – which is up to chapter nine so far. The writing of it is not as straightforward as book one – I must try to make it work as a stand-alone and at the same time give enough backstory for it to be a sensible sequel to the first two books.
I left the sea to plunge into the beginnings of ITV in London, where other Sparks had gone before. Our ability to work alone and not waste resources was sought after. It seemed sensible at the time – but there has been nothing to equal my days at sea. As you say, it was the golden age.
Harry, I just looked back and saw you visited my blog………how lovely to see you! Congratulations on your books . Good for you to be producing something during these stressful days! I applaud you! Stay safe, kiddo!
Thank you, Sherry. May the new year be kind to you and yours.
Harry, there are a number comments on the ship and Lt Mann you mention in your post on Ships Nostalgia on the net under the heading “Sandakan Death Camps” Regards Jim Muir
Thank you, Jim. I’ll investigate those. The manuscript for ‘One Jump Ahead’ is on the point of publication, but no doubt new sources will arise.
best wishes
Harry
Harry I am writing on behalf of John Harrison, a 101 year old academic, SOAS London, whose field is South Asia. He has just finished The Best Of Days with great enjoyment and interest and was wondering if you have published the second half of your memoirs of life in the merchant navy – in volume, article or programme form?
His own first studies were of the Portuguese as shippers around the African Coast, Persian Gulf, Goa, Cylon, Indonesia and China. (Based upon work in the Portuguese archives from Damao to Macao)
Hello Hilary. I’m honoured to have a reader of such distinction, and one who is twenty years older than me. I’m half-way to completing a sequel to ‘Best of Days’, though it may not be finished until early next year. Perhaps I could send you a file of the opening couple of chapters that he could read meanwhile, content that could be printed off for him.
I note his interest in historical matters Portuguese — My first publication was “Tom Fleck”, a novel set in Northern England in 1513, it includes a refugee family from Portugal. The sequel to ‘Tom Fleck’ is ‘The Black Caravel’, a sea story (of 1536) which also has Portuguese content.
best wishes
Harry Nicholson
Harry I am writing on behalf of John Harrison, a 101 year old academic, SOAS London, whose field is South Asia. He has just finished The Best Of Days with great enjoyment and interest and was wondering if you have published the second half of your memoirs of life in the merchant navy – in volume, article or programme form?
His own first studies were of the Portuguese as shippers around the African Coast, Persian Gulf, Goa, Cylon, Indonesia and China. (Based upon work in the Portuguese archives from Damao to Macao)
Happy New Year, Harry.
And for you too, kind sir. May you have the bliss of inspiration.
Hallo Harry. Congratulations on your creative stuff. High quality and standard, if I may say so!
I have a WordPress site called banklineonline.com, and have also written a memoir book called ” Any Budding Sailors?” which is both an ebook and a print version via create space. Also have a love of writing poetry but have yet publish a volume. Don’t imagine poetry sells very well, although there is a lot of interest on line. I am always struggling a bit with the technology, and admired your efforts which are so professional.
all the very best/Alan
Good morning, Alan. My compliments on your work to preserve memories of The Bank Line (I often observed those vessels standing off obscure eastern ports, and wondered about the adventures they would have.
On poetry, it seems there are more poets than buyers of poetry books; but that is no reason to hold off our creative urge. My own collection ‘Wandering About’ finds a couple of new readers each year; possibly curious after reading one of my novels.
I’ve become fascinated by memoir, and feel it worthy of much more than the recording of bare fact.
This is good: https://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/10-ways-to-tell-if-your-story-should-be-a-memoir-or-a-novel.
Fragments of Tom’s world is a delightful insight into the ancient roots of Northern England. As an American possessing a modicum of muddled English heritage, i find your storytelling touching and entertaining …
Thank you, Dolores. It still feels ancient away from the roads and particularly at night. I’d be a touch nervous in the dark among the standing stones on the moor above this house. My forebears have been around this region since at least 1570 and, considering the surnames, probably much longer . . . so I feel at home.