This book describes the voyage of the 60 year old John and Mary, one of the few remaining Thames sailing barges, from its moorings at the small Lincolnshire market town of Brigg, down the Humber and East Coast to the quiet village of Mistley on the River Stour.
 
For 11 years, J&M, as she was known, had been the home of the author, his wife and son until they finally decided to travel South and sell her. For this braving of the hazardous East Coast passage, possibly the only StaySail barge ever to have made it with just a wife and a young son crew, and almost certainly the last, DH Clark and his wife were presented with the coveted J. B. Chacot Award by the  Slocum Society.
 
The authors 50 days slog to refit the barge on the almost non-existent budget, his anxiety regarding her seaworthiness and the final appalling difficulty of navigating the 115 tonne vessel through adverse weather over some of the trickiest Shoal waters in the world made this a narrative of compelling interest and readability. It is a story from which the courage and determination of the author and his wife and son emerged most vividly.
 
Illustrated by Graham Humphreys