26' Hillyard Barnacle Goose for sale.
I am regretfully selling my boat Barnacle Goose, a 26' Hillyard that Ransome chartered in 1951. He kept an account of his time on the vessel, of which I have a copy.* She is a lovely, characterful boat, and almost identical to the one depicted in Arthur Ransomes illustrations in "We didn't mean to go to sea". I wondered if any of your visitors would be interested in her - it would be really wonderful if she was bought by someone who appreciated her rich history...
*Ransome's log from this charter is reproduced on pages 92-97 of the Amazon Publication Ransome at Sea: Notes from the Chart Table, edited by Roger Wardale.
Here is a link to the website of the broker who is selling her: http://ccgi.mikekay.plus.com/adds2/classifieds.php?a=5&b=6 - Barnacle Goose is at the bottom.
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Received 15 May 2008 from Nick Wood
We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea – from a novel to a play.
On 3rd July my adaptation of We Didn't Mean to go to Sea — approved by the Ransome Trust — will open in Ipswich. I didn't read the books as a child, but when my daughter started to bring them home, I got hooked. We Didn't Mean to go to Sea is, I'm pretty sure, my favourite of all of them, apart from anything else it is such a good story; four people, all alone, in danger, and no-one to help them but themselves. And it's set on a boat. What more could you ask for?
I couldn't let the respect and affection I had for the author and his book inhibit me if I was to translate an exciting novel into an equally exciting piece of theatre. To have a chance of making it work I had to persuade myself that if the characters and their story weren't mine at least they'd been lent to me for the duration. There were a million decisions to be taken. What to leave out? How do I turn interior monologues into dialogue? What to do about the balance between John and Susan? How to get Father — an important character for the start — involved earlier than his appearance on the deck of the ferry? Should I leave the starboard buoys black or change them to their present green?
From the Thursday to the Sunday it will be in a tent on the waterfront as part of the Ip-Art Festival and then the Eastern Angles production will tour the region until August. Rehearsals start at the beginning of June, the final draft is in, the set is being built, and the tickets are on sale. What I hope is that those in the audience who have read the book won't feel let down, and those who haven't will want to at the first earliest opportunity. It's probably a bit late to be sitting here hoping I've got it right.
Details of the tour and the production are available from www.easternangles.co.uk. Further information about Nick Wood is available from his website www.nickwood.org.
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