Storm Ahead is the seventh book in the Romney Marsh series of novels by Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards was an English children's writer of the mid-twentieth century best known for her Romney Marsh and Punchbowl Farm series of children's novels.-Early life:...

, published in 1953 by Collins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

. Lindsey Thornton, from Punchbowl Farm in Surrey, comes to stay at Westling with the Grey family. Almost immediately she is caught up in the worst gale the area has seen for many, many years. Its tragic aftermath, when the lifeboat capsizes on a rescue mission and six of the crew are lost, is based on the Mary Stanford Lifeboat

Mary Stanford Lifeboat

The Mary Stanford Lifeboat was a vessel which capsized in Rye Harbour in 1928.The disaster was the worst for many years. It occurred on 15 November 1928 when the whole of the 17 man crew of the Mary Stanford Lifeboat were drowned, practically the whole male fishing population of the small town of...

 disaster of 1928 which Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards was an English children's writer of the mid-twentieth century best known for her Romney Marsh and Punchbowl Farm series of children's novels.-Early life:...

 personally witnessed when she lived at Rye Harbour

Rye Harbour

Rye Harbour is a village located on the East Sussex coast in southeast England, near the estuary of the River Rother: it is part of the civil parish of Icklesham. Rye Harbour is located some two miles downstream of the town of Rye....

.. The disaster was the biggest loss of life from a single lifeboat accident in the history of the RNLI.

Blurb from First Edition

It was November when Lindsey went to stay with Tamzin, yet as they punted their way to Dunsford the heat was stifling and the air ominously still. Then suddenly they were hit by tempestuous squalls which dropped back to brooding calm as unexpectedly as they began. Old Jim the ferryman was waiting for them at Dunsford. "We got a dirty lotter weather brewin' up, or I ent never seen none," he said, and his prophecy was only too correct for by nightfall the worst gale for many, many years was sweeping across Romney Marsh. Its brutal force brought danger and disaster to the village, and Tamzin, Meryon and the others found themselves battling ceaselessly in the work of rescue and salvage. On shore, comfort and shelter had to be provided for those rendered homeless. At sea, when a ship signalled distress the lifeboat had to put out though it could only be tragically defeated by such formidable seas. And those at Tamzin's home had their own personal share of anxiety when Lindsey had a terrifying encounter with a mad dog. Tamzin's night ride through the floods to fetch the doctor took as much courage as anything she had ever done, for in that she was alone, save for her gallant pony, Cascade.

Subsequent editions

• Collins reprint - 1955
• Waldstatt Verlag - 1956. German hardback translation: Der alte Jim und seine Jungens
• Puffin paperback - 1957
• Girls Gone By Publishers
  Girls Gone By Publishers
  Girls Gone By Publishers is a publishing company run by Clarissa Cridland and Ann Mackie-Hunter and is based in Bath, Somerset. They re-publish new editions of some of the most popular girls' fiction titles from the twentieth century.-Elinor Brent-Dyer:...
  
  reprint of original - July 2005