Back home after a wonderful trip to Newfoundland and mainland Canada. Vita Sackville-West said: ‘Travel is a primeval pleasure. There is no bore worse than the travel bore. We do not want to know what he saw in Rome’. This is a timely reminder that you will lose friends if you spend your time recounting the wonderful things you have seen on your travels. So – no mention of the humpback whales of St Vincent’s. Sorry guys. But, one thing you can share is stories inspried by travel. I was on the look out for tales which might offer the raw material for a future historical thriller. We ended up driving out to Cape Race, Newfoundland – the most south-easterly point on the island, and therefore the place nearest to thre shipping lanes between Europe and New York. It was here that the SOS from Titanic was first picked up. (Although – it wasn’t an SOS at first. That was a new-fangled idea.) There was a community out on the cape, what with the lighthouse, the radio station, the power station (for the light), and a school, and homes. When the message came in the two radio operators were on a break – they’d left a 14-year-old boy in charge. He was the one who made history by picking up the distress signal. But – great twist this – he was sworn to secrecy becuase the grown-ups were not paying attention as they should have. A secret he kept until they had passed on from this life. There’s the start of a story there. Did he keep any other secrets? And then there was the ship which went out to look for survivors from St John’s – the SS Algerine. What did they really find? What did they bring back? There’s a story here. One day I’ll write it.