This story probably would never have come about if it wasn’t for my wife Clare. Let me explain. When she was little she had chicken pox and like they did in those days, she was put in another room in the house to recuperate. She was bored one day and started looking in an old chest in the corner of the room where she found something quite extraordinary hidden away amongst the forgotten socks. It was a kind of medal. On one side, there was the ship going down, on the other a skeleton selling tickets to the line of passengers. It was made to commemorate the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. The images on the medal were frightening and she put it back in the chest and forgot about it.
Learn more about the inspiration behind the book and see more of the photographs taken on the Scilly Isles.
