When the tide turned
Spring Tides Fiona Gell (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99)
FIONA GELL is a marine biologist and published poet—a winning combination, as this memoir proves. It tells how a love of the sea, inseparable from a Manx childhood, turned the author into the scientist who saw her campaign to protect Ramsey Bay (as the Isle of Man’s first Marine Nature Reserve) recognised by the Tynwald (parliament).
The achievement seems to have been her destiny. Her father was born on Man, his maternal grandfather a Manx fisherman, and after studying and teaching physics in Liverpool, he came home to teach in Ramsey. Holidays were on Man: the first of a sprinkling of black and white snapshots shows the author ‘exploring the sea in Port Erin’ aged four. The book’s title says it all: ‘Spring tides give us a unique opportunity to connect author Rachel Carson described it.
