Ghosts Of Rosevear
Haunting in the Scillies by Todd Stevens & Edward Cumming
Last year, well-known Scilly Islands diver Todd Stevens, associated with painstaking work on the local wreck HMS Colossus, led a team searching for remnants of an 18th century mailboat wreck, the Nancy packet, off uninhabited Rosevear rock.
One of the passengers, the captain's wife, had been a celebrated/notorious actress called Anne Cargill, very much the Sienna Miller of her day. All her wealth and jewellery had been on board with her when the vessel foundered.
Fellow-diver Ed Cumming undertook to research the background to the wrecking, and his findings take up the vast majority of the book, with Stevens' account of the diving and his discoveries bringing up the rear.
The research is not worn lightly, either - it looks as if every scrap brought to light was used to fill the 200 pages. Where certain facts were not available, fictional bridges have been built to carry us through to the inevitable conclusion.
While Ghosts of Rosevear could profitably have been streamlined and restructured to make its flow more dramatic (it's particularly slow to get going), it still makes an absorbing and, in the end, reasonably poignant read.
Perhaps the shade of Anne Cargill does still haunt the green rock - the authors make a convincing case for why this should be so.
The book comes with an optional interactive CD about the history - this a real labour of love.
Steve Weinman
Todd Stevens & MIBEC Enterprises (www.weymouthdiving.co.uk)
ISBN 9780954210458
Softback, 210pp, £10 + CD £5
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