The wonders of the Suffolk coast
From Suffolk Magazine
Born in Woodbridge, Julia Jones has spent her life influenced by the people and places dotted along the shifting coastline between Lowestoft and the Blackwater. Her Strong Winds books – ostensibly for older children, but actually of equal appeal to adult readers – are both a homage to and a twenty-first century expression of the sense of exploration inherent in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series.
The link between the two writers is further entwined as her yacht, Peter Duck, was once owned by Ransome.
“I met Peter Duck in 1957 when I was just three years old and my parents sailed my brother and I from the River Deben to Holbrook Bay. She is now my own – and my family’s – most treasured possession”.
Peter Duck was built by Harry King’s boatyard at Pin Mill on the Shotley Peninsula and it is this elongated spur of land between the Rivers Orwell and Stour that features most regularly in Julia Jones’s writing. Her first three books are dominated by experiences around the Peninsula.