HMS Prince, flagship of James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral, was heeled over on her side being careened. The English had been at sea since the beginning of the month and had been forced to withdraw from harassing the Dutch in order to replenish their supplies and undertake various maintenance tasks. The combined English-French fleets were at anchor off the coast of Suffolk. The morning of the Battle of Sole Bay (May 28st or June 7th 1672, depending which calender you were using) dawned light and fair.
They could watch the clouds, observe the rings around the sun and check the level of mercury in their barometers but ultimately What You Saw was What You Got in meteorological terms. Seventeenth century seafarers had fewer resources at their disposal. That single weather window of opportunity – overlooked by the Germans, gambled on by the Allies. The 'miracle of Dunkirk' (May 27th – June 4th) was only made possible by several days of light winds and calm sea conditions and the weather forecasts before the D-Day landings (June 4th) have been described as “the most important in history”. Lovely June weather means open season for naval warfare in the waters around Britain. One of life's neater narrative sequences perhaps? It also initiated a friendship with History Girl Imogen Robertson (Mrs Ned Palmer). The return of Peter Duck from her adventures in Russia with the Palmer family was the catalyst that convinced Julia to begin writing fiction of her own – hence the 'Strong Winds' series. Julia and her partner Francis Wheen own Peter Duck, a yacht built for Arthur Ransome, on which Julia sailed throughout her childhood.
Closure was finally achieved with Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory which was published in 2012.
#JULIA JONES FATHER ARCHIVE#
She's since re-published two editions of The Oaken Heart, written Allingham's biography and spent more years that she likes to admit working through the extraordinary archive material that Allingham preserved from her father, Herbert Allingham's, working life. Julia Jones was running a bookshop and local publishing business in Essex when she discovered Margery Allingham's WW2 autobiography The Oaken Heart.
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