George Millar

[Constance]

Millar is the sort of man who makes you realise what a sheltered life you've led. I'm reading 'Isabel and the Sea', an account of his journey through France and the Med to Greece in the immediate aftermath of a war in which he acquitted himself superbly, fighting with the Maquis. Written in his thirties, its attitudes and expression resemble a 60-year-old, maybe that's what war does to you. He wrongly assumes his readers share his somewhat privileged social background, but I forgive him that for his ability to hold interest, and the skill and resourcefulness shown by him and his wife in handling their substantial old boat and the trials of the voyage. 'Oyster River' recounts their summer of '63 aboard the well-known yawl Amokura in Morbihan. Full of anecdote and also recommended. So many travel writers have nothing much to say beyond the minutiae of their experience of travelling, not so Millar whose life experience enables him to make far more of each encounter than I could. He died last year at 94. Both books available from Dovecote Press, with which I have no connection at all other than as a satisfied reader.

 

[Poignard]

Photos and description of his yawl "Amokura" on: www.easternyachts.com/amokura

 

[Roach1948]

"Truant" is also for sale at http://www.woodenships.co.uk/ advertised as a 50' West Country motor sailer.

 

[Poignard]

Thanks for that. I'll print it out and keep it in the book.
Truant must have been quite a handful for them as they were quite inexperienced then and he had been wounded in the war

 

[RMA]

Millar also wrote 'A White Boat from England' describing a trip to the Mediterranean via Biscay. I have enjoyed all his sailing books.

 

[milltech]

Also wrote his autobiography, "Road to Resistance", which is to be recommended. Such a life!

I liked his Uncle Williams advice which was more or less, "Have nothing to do with prostitutes until you have passed the age of seventy", "When I would", he says, "presumably be sexually jaded enough to extract full value for money".

Oh well, 8 years and one week to go!

 

[milltech]

Re-reading Isabel and the Sea and it's stuffed with good lines I must try to remember for the appropriate moment, like when their laundress comes on the boat in a state of distress and he offers her a cognac, "too late I realised it was like dropping an incendiary on an already burning house". (Well more or less the words).