Sailing Seven Seas

by Peter Pigott

2010 · Dundurn

Under Canadian Pacific’s red-and-white-checkered flag, the company’s founders, George Stephen and William C. Van Horne, created a rail-sea service from Liverpool to Hong Kong. Boasting sternwheelers, Great Lakes bulk carriers, ferries, and luxurious ocean-going liner leviathans, the Canadian Pacific shipping line sailed around the globe. In both world wars the entire fleet served gallantly as Allied troop carriers. After the Second World War, the company staved off the realities of the jet age for as long as it could, replacing liners with container ships, until what was left of the legendary maritime operation was sold off in 2005. With a witty and informative style, author Peter Pigott evokes not only the nostalgic heyday of ocean travel but reveals a slice of almost-forgotten Canadiana. From the stifling steerage quarters of immigrant ships to the elegant drawing rooms of nautical titans such as the ill-fated Empress of Ireland and the Empress of Asia, from U-boat-haunted convoys to container ships, shore dwellers and old salts alike will be delighted with Sailing Seven Seas.

MOMENT IN TIME

by Peter Sargent

2017 · eBook Partnership

It only takes a moment to change the world. Our past is littered with these moments; from the grandest in the land - a Queen claiming her crown at a Suffolk castle - to the humblest - a workman whitewashing religious pictures in a church.These moments in time helped create our history in East Anglia. In this book, former journalist Peter Sargent takes us on a journey in time, from the mysterious ancient figure of the Green Man in Norwich Cathedral, via the day King Charles II rode a winner at Newmarket's racetrack on to Second World War soldiers preparing for the D-Day landings in woods on the Norfolk-Suffolk border.In this series of short stories, many of which first appeared in the Eastern Daily Press newspaper, encounter famous figures who made their mark on the eastern counties. Here is Oliver Cromwell raising an army, Queen Elizabeth I making a Royal Progress, while her sister Mary plays a game of thrones, highwayman Dick Turpin goes about his nefarious business and Norfolk squire and Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, saves the country from financial ruin.You'll also meet less familiar figures and veer off the beaten track. Here are tales of a Cambridgeshire Iron Age 'hill fort', Norfolk's raffish 19th Century bare knuckle boxers and the sailors who fought a huge, but barely remembered, 17th Century sea battle off the Suffolk coast.