Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea
Michael Morpurgo

Discover the beautiful stories of Michael Morpurgo, author of Warhorse and the nation’s favourite storyteller.How far would you go to find yourself? The lyrical, life-affirming new novel from the bestselling author of Private Peaceful“There were dozens of us on the ship, all up on deck for the leaving of Liverpool, gulls wheeling and crying over our heads, calling good-bye…That is all I remember of England.”When six-year-old orphan Arthur Hobhouse is shipped to Australia after WWII he loses his sister, his country and everything he knows. Overcoming enormous hardships with fellow orphan Marty, Arthur is finally saved by the extraordinary people he meets and by his talent for boat-design and sailing. Now he has built a special boat for his daughter Allie – a solo yacht designed to carry her to England in search of his long-lost sister. Will the threads of Arthur's life finally come together?“I was there on the quayside to see Allie take her out for the first time, saw her dancing through the waves, and I knew I'd never built a finer boat.”

Alone on a Wide

Wide Sea

michael morpurgo

Copyright (#ulink_07c57aa7-1579-5dce-b288-34314ace47f2)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2006 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2006

Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Some Photographs were unavailable for the electronic edition.

Source ISBN:

EBook Edition © 2006 ISBN: 9780007369980

Version: 2014-10-02

Dedication (#ulink_d2b77388-4ace-57c4-b75c-77fe9ffeeae1)

To Lula Léa and Clare, who helped make this book with me.

My thanks to Alex Whitworth and Peter Crozier, mariners extraordinaire and quite ancient too, whose emails while circumnavigating the world in their yacht Berrimilla in 2004 informed and inspired this story. Thanks also to Graham Barrett and Isabella Whitworth for all their wonderful help and encouragement. And of course I mustn’t forget Samuel Taylor Coleridge…

Contents

Cover (#uda43ad0d-776d-53d9-b65c-b991e8f92980)

Title Page (#ud0a1e810-1847-54b3-8b05-ac6fc7338999)

Copyright (#ua761d7b2-f2f7-50e3-8dfc-028e392a96e9)

Dedication (#u81c298cb-751e-5443-8779-9f5e199d38b2)

Part One: The Story of Arthur Hobhouse (#u3d7a5388-d431-5d6d-a6a6-c0d75e3239bf)

Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening (#u19b08b24-5b40-5729-81d4-8a023f87ee00)

Three Red Funnels and an Orchestra (#u5257178c-1459-5ee4-95f0-db4c9aaad56c)

Kookaburras, Cockatoos and Kangaroos (#u0d991b5d-49d4-5af5-9e33-c61b3388f8ce)

Cooper’s Station and Piggy Bacon and God’s Work (#u19070fe9-5235-543d-a080-048a42ad96b3)

Suffer Little Children (#ue7939317-fffe-52f8-b38f-1988aeb1135e)

Wes Snarkey’s Revenge (#uc18e8ad5-946e-580c-b4fa-4e6b6e2f9453)

Saints and Sinners (#u3b1c5878-483c-5bd8-b6b1-f3a647781029)

Mrs Piggy to Ida (#u06e8ac5c-14b5-5a06-b268-e7a4434759dc)

“Only One Way Out” (#u2d3e2353-8e34-5e9f-b804-69b808986475)

“Did We Have the Children Here for This?” (#u19ce1f4e-cfbe-5df7-a5bb-81228d22e343)

“Just Watch Me” (#u232db3f3-5319-5983-ac25-f1bf9e8ac739)

“For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” (#litres_trial_promo)

Wide as the Ocean (#litres_trial_promo)

“Couple of Raggedy Little Scarecrows” (#litres_trial_promo)

Henry’s Horrible Hat Hole (#litres_trial_promo)

I Must Go Down to the Sea (#litres_trial_promo)

Scrambled Eggs and Baked Beans (#litres_trial_promo)

“You’re my Boys, Aren’t You?” (#litres_trial_promo)

Freddie Dodds (#litres_trial_promo)

One January Night (#litres_trial_promo)

An Orphan Just the Same (#litres_trial_promo)

Things Fall Apart (#litres_trial_promo)

The Centre Will Not Hold (#litres_trial_promo)

Oh Lucky Man! (#litres_trial_promo)

Kitty Four (#litres_trial_promo)