To those who went to the War straight from school and survived it, the problem of what to do afterwards was peculiarly difficult.' For H.W. 'Bill' Tilman, the solution lay in Africa: in gold prospecting, mountaineering and a 3,000-mile bicycle ride across the continent. Tilman was one of the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering climber and sailor who held exploration above all else. He made first ascents throughout the Himalaya, attempted Mount Everest, and sailed into the Arctic Circle. For Tilman, the goal was always to explore, to see new places, to discover rather than conquer. First published in 1937, Snow on the Equator chronicles Tilman's early adventures; his transition from East African coffee planter to famed mountaineer. After World War I, Tilman left for Africa, where he grew coffee, prospected for gold and met Eric Shipton, the two beginning their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori. Tilman eventually left Africa in typically adventurous style via a 3,000-mile solo bicycle ride across the continent - all recounted here in splendidly funny style. Tilman is one of the greatest of all travel writers. His books are well-informed and keenly observed, concerned with places and people as much as summits and achievements. They are full of humour and anecdotes and are frequently hilarious. He is part of the great British tradition of comic writing and there is nobody else quite like him.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 215

Dimensions: 159 x 218 mm

Publication Date: 01-09-2015

No maritime library will be complete without a copy of this volume on its shelves, for the Yorkshire fishing coble and the Yorkshire smack of the past century were among the finest examples of English sea-going craft ever devised, and none more fitted for the rugged coast to which they belonged or for the stormy seas on which they used to sail. —Peter F. Anson, 1933 First published in 1933, this book of a hundred of Ernest Dade’s delightful pen and ink sketches of the North Sea fishing fleet in the latter part of the nineteenth century is not only a significant artistic achievement, but also an invaluable historical record. Observed either from his own boat or from onboard the fishing boats themselves, the drawings have an immediacy rare in work of this kind—epitomized by the sketch on page 37 where it may not be too fanciful to imagine that the yawl in the foreground is Dade sailing out to meet the returning fishing fleet with pen and pad to hand. Not only do the sketches portray the boats and their gear accurately and in great detail, but they also show the fishermen at their work both offshore and inshore from most of the fishing centres of the Yorkshire coast. The facility of Dade’s pen work can only be admired and most certainly enjoyed. These pictures show all this and are true in every way. Mr. Ernest Dade lived the life, knew the men, and sailed in the various craft he draws so well. It is a record of things passed away. —Frank Wheeler, Fisherman, 1932 This new edition has an illustrated Postscript on the restored 40ft Bridlington Sailing Coble Three Brothers.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 27-11-2013

Deep in southern latitudes, in a desolate corner of Cumberland Bay on the east coast of the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, hard by the rotting quays of the abandoned whaling station of Grytviken and almost within a stone’s throw of the grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton, lie three forsaken steam ships: rusting remnants of our industrial past, unique survivals from a vanished age of steam at sea. One of these ships is Viola, the sole surviving Hull steam trawler from the huge fleet which put 'fish & chips' on Britain's plates more than a hundred years ago. In this absorbing account, maritime historians Robb Robinson and Ian Hart describe her ancestry and origins in the Victorian and Edwardian North Sea fishery—vividly depicting life for her crew in the most dangerous industry of its time; they record her Great War service as a U-boat hunter—one of the many merchant vessels largely unsung for their contribution, and often sacrifice, in wartime; and they recount her subsequent career hunting whales off West Africa, then later sealing and exploration work in the South Atlantic, before her final abandonment in South Georgia. Here she became quarry for the infamous Argentine scrap metal expedition of 1982, in the initiating action of the Falklands War. This improbable yet true story of a humble working vessel and those involved with her is a highly readable work of social, as well as maritime, history.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 27-10-2014

“Form follows function,” as it has been said; when that form enters the realm of Art, we have something timelessly memorable.—Iain Oughtred Albert Strange (1855-1917) was an accomplished artist, teacher, yacht designer, sailor, and writer, and he left his indelible mark on all these fields of activity, with levels of accomplishment, modesty and humour which have endeared him to so many, from his own lifetime to the present day. In this book, first published in 1990 by The Albert Strange Association and long out of print, John Leather provides a biography of Strange and a commentary on many of his designs. The book also includes: Drawings of 27 yacht designs; an appreciation of Strange the artist; a selection of his cruising yarns reproduced in facsimile from The Yachting Monthly of a century and more ago; an updated selection of recently located images of his paintings; and photographs of Strange yachts afloat today. This is the first of two volumes originated by the Albert Strange Association and to be updated and re-issued by Lodestar Books, and it deserves a place on the bookshelves of anyone who appreciates the design and enjoyment of the classic British cruising yacht, and the 'complete' example of humanity represented by Albert Strange.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 210 x 275 mm

Publication Date: 06-03-2015

The third of George Millar’s masterful sailing and travel narratives to be republished many decades after their original appearance. On the face of it, this voyage from Lymington to the Riviera should not be noteworthy, but this is a world recovering from war, and the author a man ‘incapable of writing a dull sentence’. As Peter Bruce states in his Introduction, “One soon becomes captivated, as one always is, by George’s unusually acute powers of observation and his ability to ascertain and record exactly what was going on at every stop… George Millar’s accounts of his adventures are always like a box of jewels each giving dazzling pleasure and glorious entertainment, and never better than in this deservedly revived book.” George Millar DSO, MC (1910-2005) read architecture at Cambridge.He became a journalist, first on the Daily Telegraph, then as Paris correspondent for the Daily Express. During the war he joined the Rifle Brigade, was captured in North Africa, escaped from a German POW camp and returned to England via occupied France and the Pyrenees, later recording these events in Horned Pigeon (1946). He returned to France as an SOE agent to work alongside the Resistance, an experience he described in Maquis (1945), and for which he was awarded both the Legion d’Honneur and the Croix de Guerre. After the war Millar and his wife Isabel farmed in Dorset, and made a number of voyages under sail in Baltic and European waters, and the Mediterranean. Three of these were recorded in books: Isabel and the Sea, Oyster River (both reissued in recent years by Dovecote Press) and A White Boat from England.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 03-07-2015

Dr Thomas Harrison Butler was a skilled, yet amateur, designer responsible for some hundreds of classic English cruising yachts which still grace our seas. Cruising Yachts, his design manifesto, first appeared in 1945—the year of his death—and last appeared in print in 1995. This long overdue Fifth Edition has been produced in collaboration with the Harrison Butler Association, and is a complete re-setting of the original text, drawings and mono photographs, documenting in detail HB’s approach to the design and equipping of a yacht, providing an annotated catalogue of notable designs, and including a biographical portrait by HB’s daughter, the late Joan Jardine-Brown. New for this edition are a modern gallery of colour photographs of HB yachts, and a thoughtful and illuminating Foreword by the late Ed Burnett, who was our foremost designer of modern yachts in the classic English idiom.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 184

Publication Date: 04-09-2015

Inexplicably out of print since the late 1940s, Messing About in Boats is one of the most charming and evocative accounts of work and leisure afloat in the years either side of the Great War. John Muir describes with humanity and humour the perils of boat acquisition and ownership by the impecunious, and the somewhat mixed talents of the Paid Hand. But his account is more than balanced by the interest and pleasure he took in working and sailing in English waters, from the North Sea to the Bristol Channel, in an age long before the marina, GPS and radio. Muir provides two valuable first-hand accounts of work afloat under steam and sail before the War, while he was on half-paid leave between assignments in the Royal Navy: In the North Sea ‘boxing’ fleet of trawlers which remained on station for weeks on end, where he served in his medical capacity, and later in the Bristol Channel Pilot service, where he crewed on a cutter, delivering the pilot to incoming ships in all weathers. His unfavourable views of the qualities of the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter as a yacht may surprise its aficionados today, but he relented sufficiently to own two of them, Maud and Freda, which feature in the book.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 208

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 20-10-2016

This is the fascinating autobiography of none other than Ted Dexter — aka Lord Ted — the ferociously powerful and debonair former England international cricketer and captain. Dexter was a classical, hard-hitting batsman and right-arm swing bowler of the highest order. Having captained England in 1961-2, stood as England’s chairman of selectors from 1989-1993 and then becoming President of the MCC in 2001, he is undeniably one of England’s most prolific cricketers, playing alongside and standing in the same legacy as the iconic Fred Trueman, Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Richie Benaud and Gary Sobers. But, as Ted is eager to stress in the introduction of his book, he also lived a rich, lively and fulfilling life outside of his sporting career. Featuring tales galore — of his various escapades along the French Rivera, his experience of running a sports PR company, flying planes (just “because he could”), playing championship golf, racing greyhounds, journalism, broadcasting and honestly *so much more* — you’ll wonder if there’s anything in life this man couldn’t do! Fresh, vivacious and ridiculously entertaining, this book is destined to unravel as a rip-roaring read not only for those who recall his sporting legacy, but for anyone who resonates with Ted’s fervent enthusiasm for both cricket and life. .

Bind: hardback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 30-09-2020

Based on Les Hill’s 63 years of fly fishing in New Zealand, HOOKED FOR LIFE is packed with interesting, amusing and informative anecdotes. The book resonates with the sheer joy of hunting and catching trout, while imparting a lifetime’s worth of invaluable lessons on how to go about it. The reader will not only benefit from the author’s years of experience with nymph and dry fly, but will enjoy soaking up the special atmosphere he evokes and relive vicariously the primal contest between angler and fish. Along the way they’ll learn to think like a trout and understand the nature of the world it lives in; get some tips on streamside photography; and come to appreciate the author’s view that it is often more satisfying to catch one special fish than a large number on a particular day, or that the trout that gets away can provide as much fun as several brought to a net. In the second part of the book, Dr Graham Macdonald’s thoughtful chapters on fishing and wellness give an insight into the therapeutic benefits of fly fishing, an unusual angle not often explored in fly fishing literature. From page one, HOOKED FOR LIFE is lavishly illustrated with over 120 superb large-format colour photographs that not only invite one into the book, but also reveal the beauty of our rivers, streams, lakes and countryside, and encourage the reader to head out to experience the wonderful world of fly fishing. The perfect gift for any angler. "A marvel of a book, illustrated with superb photography and written with quiet wisdom, story-telling art, information and love. A treasure trove gathered from more than 60 years of perfect pleasure." - Kevin Ireland, author of How To Catch A Fish ABOUT THE AUTHOR Les Hill is a retired school teacher. He lives on a two-acre block close to Hokitika with panoramic views of the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea. He enjoys life in the outdoors – trout fishing, whitebaiting, sea fishing and hunting. He always carries a camera. He is the author or co-author of seven previous, highly acclaimed books on trout fishing. Les was a regular contributor to Fish and Game magazine and has had numerous articles and photographs published in books and magazines both in NZ and abroad.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 208

Dimensions: 210 x 256 mm

Publication Date: 01-11-2020

'Sir Bob Charles – The Biography’ is the first comprehensive biography of Sir Bob Charles. His story begins in working-class rural New Zealand. In 1960 he embarked upon a career that no New Zealander had chosen before – that of a full-time touring professional golfer. The pressure was on the young Kiwi golfer as he took off around the world, with £350 in travellers’ cheques to fund his new career. If he did not play well enough his cash would run out and he would be back in Christchurch as a teller for the National Bank of New Zealand. That prospect alone spurred his success. The book is an account of his 50 years touring the world with his golf clubs. The reader will encounter the key characters in the story who supported the young golfer on his way to the very top of his sport. You will meet Ivor and Phyl Charles, his wife Verity, mentor Ian Cromb and his agent Mark McCormack. There are over 150 stunning photos in the book, many from the Charles family’s own collection. Combined with the narrative the images provide the complete picture of a notable New Zealand life. Bob Charles competed in the ‘’golden age’’ of professional golf in the 1960s and 1970s. He played with, and at times defeated, each member of the ‘’Big Three’’.The televising of golf from the early 1960s created an explosion in enthusiasm for the game. During this period, he acquired the title of the ‘’best putter in the world’’ in the eyes of both journalists and fellow competitors. His senior career delivered another 20 years of success in the game he loved. For the first 10 years on the Senior PGA Tour from 1986 he became the man to beat. The book chronicles the success of Bob Charles as a golfer - but there is more to the man than that. With his 1999 knighthood and his elevation to the Order of New Zealand in 2011 he has been honoured not only for his success as a golfer but also for the way he has lived his life. His enduring and happy marriage to Verity and the closeness of his relationship to his children and grandchildren form an important part of the story. Verity’s contribution to his career was enormous as Bob was able to travel the world, focusing solely on competing and succeeding at the highest level in his sport. Sir Bob Charles – The Biography is an in-depth study of the life and times of this great New Zealand sportsman. “Sir Bob Charles - the greatest Kiwi golfer of all. I may be accused of bias in describing the left-hander as the best New Zealand golfer of all. If we look at his record that lasted more than 50 years, I believe there is no argument.’’ Bob Glading. New Zealand Open Champion 1946, 1947. Writing for The Cut magazine, 2008.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 328

Dimensions: 190 x 245 mm

Publication Date: 20-10-2020