Photos above from top, left to right Death of Chanticleer- drawn for Dorothy, family collection Little Bo Peep - from family collection Cow and cat - from family collection S.Y Rose, Train, Rock Charming Hjerkinn, shovelling coal, Bindle, Disdain and The Fire - 'R.A. Clarke Sketchbook, courtesy of robertstjohnsmith.com, shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence' Eagle from 1916 Christmas Card - from the family collection HMS India framed - from the family collection Birch trunk painting - from...

When I first started researching and writing about HMS India and her men I spent a significant amount of time hunting out descendants of the men who were on board and so it seemed like quite a well known story - certainly everyone I spoke to knew about it. Well, of course they did, their ancestors were on board. Over the past few years, however, in trying to promote my work and writing and the website it has become very clear how little known HMS India's story is. I have been interviewed...

I began my research journey for my first book, A Bare Chronicle of Existence - Stories and Letters from internment in Norway during WW1, with a collection of letters in our family archives. Richard Arnold Clarke (known as Arnold) was my husband's grandfather and it was the letters he wrote whilst interned in Norway during the First World War that inspired me to research further and then write the book. At this early point we were aware of a small number of letters being sold on the...