Escape to the Sea : Memoirs of a Victorian Merchant Mariner

First-hand account of survival of an orphan boy providing a vivid picture of life under sail

Written by Tom ''Jack'' Sullivan Green A.B. of Bristol in the 1920s, Escape to the Sea is a first-hand account of survival against the odds of an orphan boy in early Victorian England.
This tale of a seaman''s life chronicles both tragedy and comedy amongst the everyday lot of a working world unimaginable in the modern era. Tom traces his early life in the London slums of 1848; being apprenticed to a tailor before running away to sea to escape a ''miserable life''. But when a new and tyrannical skipper made terrifying death threats he was again forced to run away.
Walking from London to Liverpool in 1866 to try his hand on trans-Atlantic passages, Tom gives a chilling account of the last public hanging at Stafford. In the same year, Tom''s travels take him to Georgia, USA where he gives an eye-witness account of the tragic plight of slaves freed after the American Civil War. The harrowing sights he saw ashore leave a searing impression of the aftermath of a devastating conflict.
Following various brushes with authority, Tom changes his name to Jack Green and lies low taking shore jobs near Cardiff where he turns down working digging the Severn Tunnel due to claustrophobia. Eventually settling and marrying near Bristol, he experienced more exotic times as a mariner - including plying the former slave routes to West Africa - before he ''swallowed the anchor''.