Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Shifting Winds, by R.M. Ballantyne ________________________________________________________________________ As so often with Ballantyne's books there are really several tales all told in parallel in this book. There is the story of the seaman Gaff and his son Billy, there is the story of Mrs Gaff, there is Haco Barepoles, there is Captain Bingley and his son Gildart, there is the Stuart family. All these characters are very well drawn, and their lives merge together and move apart to a surprising degree. With a fundamentally Christian message, this book also depicts the work of the Shipwrecked Mariners and Fishermen Institution. Although there are incidents at sea, most of the action takes place in the small fishing village of Wreckumoft, and the town of Athenbury. One of the great values of Ballantyne's books is the insight he gives into life in Britain in the nineteenth century, not just the day-to-day lives of the actors, but the motives that propel them, and the upbringing that these actors had. We are, however, mystified by the title, which made one think that the book might be something to do with ballooning! Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in 1825 and died in 1894. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and in 1841 he became a clerk with the Hudson Bay Company, working at the Red River Settlement in Northen Canada until 1847, arriving back in Edinburgh in 1848. The letters he had written home were very amusing in their description of backwoods life, and his family publishing connections suggested that he should construct a book based on these letters. Three of his most enduring books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur Traders", "Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on his experiences with the HBC. In this period he also wrote "The Coral island" and "Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never visited by Ballantyne. Having been chided for small mistakes he made in these books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about. With these books he became known as a great master of literature intended for teenagers. He researched the Cornish Mines, the London Fire Brigade, the Postal Service, the Railways, the laying down of submarine telegraph cables, the construction of light-houses, the light-ship service, the life- boat service, South Africa, Norway, the North Sea fishing fleet, ballooning, deep-sea diving, Algiers, and many more, experiencing the lives of the men and women in these settings by living with them for weeks and months at a time, and he lived as they lived.