Mayflower - A Seachange

“It’s 400 years, 20 generations, 30 million American descendants and a mass of cultural and technological changes since a small ship called The Mayflower, carrying 102 brave souls and at least 30 crew, set out on an epic voyage that was not only destined to change its passengers’ lives irrevocably, but the very course of world history. And now is the time to tell it,” said Content Director, Juliet Coombe.

Called Mayflower A Seachange, the book has been created as part of the forthcoming Mayflower 2020 commemorations, 10% of the profit, pretty much all the author’s royalties, will go to the Ocean Conservation Trust to clean up the oceans.

Juliet Coombe

The idea for the book came from Dawn Bebe, who has set up Bookfluential as a community publishing house and who has crowdfunded to get the book in print. It’s being directed and written by Juliet Coombe, previously a travel writer and photographer for lonely planet; designed by Gordon Ramsey’s book designer, James Edgar; edited, co- researched and co-written, by Charlie Keeler, Mayflower 400 historic tour guide for Devon & Cornwall Tour Guides in Plymouth; illustrated by Plymouth artist Sarah Smallden; and photographed by Guy Harris.

The book clearly links Cornwall to the Mayflower story. The rumoured stop over by the ship at Penryn to fetch clean water due to Plymouth water being contaminated with Cholera is explored. And it includes fascinating facts and stories around the tin mining and china clay industries, the Prayer Book Rebellion, the Stannary parliaments held on Dartmoor and the great estate of Mt Edgcumbe. It also showcases Cornish people and places: artisans working in Mount Edgcumbe stables, the Cremyl ferry, the beautiful gardens of Mount Edgcumbe and its famous native black bees.

It tells the story of the original passengers and what led up to the ship casting off from Mayflower Steps, Plymouth, on Sept 16, 1620 into the dark treacherous seas of the Atlantic. It shows how the forces that drove those on board to take the ultimate gamble are still at work today - and considers what we can all do about them together. The book introduces 20 people who were in Plymouth around 1620 and their modern day counterparts today, 400 years later. Sailors, mayors, mothers, doctors, engineers, farmers, fishermen, cooks, to name a few - explore what their lives are like today and find out their views on the future. There are interviews with the Lord Mayor of Plymouth, The Commander of the Royal Navy Base, the custodian of the biggest Ashkenazi Synagogue in the Western World, a fisherman turned fisher of Antiques, cooks who are using recycled food to bring communities together, the inventor of the world’s biggest autonomous ship that’s set to revolutionise marine research, underwater archaeologists, a leading edge fashion designer, a royal opera singer - and a mum who juggles the modern world of family and business - to name but a few!

The Crowdfunder campaign has reached it’s initial target and is now raising funds to print even more books.

Visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ mayflowerseachange/ to find out more and order your copy!

Juliet Coombe