THE great storm of the 31st of January —1st of February, 1953, has had a chronicler of distinction in Mr. J.

Lennox Kerr.* Mr. Kerr has recorded the happen- ings at sea around our coasts on those two extraordinary days when more than 300 lives were lost. He has done so by questioning, while the details were still fresh in their memories, those who were at sea and engaged in rescue work; he has written his account in vivid and forceful prose; and he has shown a seaman's under- standing of the difficulties and of men's reactions.

It is a truly sympathetic work.

While omitting nothing necessary to the telling of his story, Mr. Kerr has avoided—or perhaps he never felt— the temptation to which so many reporters of disasters in our times have succumbed, that of searching for scapegoats. Mr. Kerr does not pass a word of censure; he simply tells how men went about their work when the prospect of death faced themselves and others.

In recording what happened in those two days, Mr. Kerr has achieved something seldom attempted, for he shows how all the different organisa- tions involved in the work of rescue at sea co-operate. We read at first of how Mr. Price, the station officer of Stornoway coastguard station, and the life-saving crew made their way through appalling conditions to take the crew off the Clan Macquarrie; of the devotion to duty of the officers of the Princess Victoria and how David Broadfoot continued until his last moments to send signals which were picked up by the Portpatrick wireless station; of the search by a pilot of the R.A.F. for the Michael Griffiths and of H.M. destroyer Contest for the Princess Victoria; of the help given to other vessels by the coastal cargo steamer Orcy and the steam trawler Loch Awe; and how the Humber life- boat station, radio station and the coastguard worked unceasingly to warn shipping of the dangers of the drifting Spurn lightvessel.

The work of the life-boats during the great storm, like that of the many other services involved, receives the tributes which it earned. The rescue of 31 survivors from the Princess Victoria by the Donaghadee life-boat and the launching in the face of great difficulties of the Humber life-boat are described at length, and of the Port- patrick life-boat Mr. Kerr writes: "No boat other than a life-boat designed for survival under the worst conditions at sea could have lived in such a sea as now ran, no men but those staunch-hearted volunteers of the Life-boat Service would have taken a small craft out that day. The Jeanie Speirs drove ahead with her cockpit being filled every few minutes and surviving only because the water could pass out again through her draining-valves and her engines could run submerged in water if need be." This is an inspiring book, and it may give many readers a feeling of humility, a feeling which the author himself seems to share and for which the reader mav well thank him.

*J. Lennox Kerr : The Great Storm (Harrap, 12,v. 6d.)..