Charity Cards & Gifts
Purchasing our charity cards and gifts with a difference helps the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society make a difference!
The Shipwrecked Mariners' Society offers a range of quality hand-picked greetings cards, including Christmas, correspondence and birthday cards, and associated items, the proceeds of which enable us to support those who need it most. Our calendars and books make great gifts and highlight the rich and fascinating maritime heritage created by generations of seafarers.
It’s easy to purchase items from the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, either:
In person:
Visit our Head Office in Chichester. It’s open throughout the year Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm. Plus, to coincide with the release of our popular Christmas card range, we will offer additional opening times on a Saturday 10am to 1pm, (13 November to 11 December). Our address details can be found here.
We look forward to seeing you!
Online:
You can view and purchase our range of quality charity cards and gifts via the Internet.
Request a copy of our 2012 comprehensive brochure here 
Quality Christmas cards and bargain Christmas card packs
Correspondence cards
Maritime birthday cards
The Scottish Colourists Collection of Birthday Cards, by George Leslie Hunter and Francis Cambell Boileau Cadell. Courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library.
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Have you ordered your copy of 'Heroism at Sea' (e-book)?
This is a unique and detailed history of the Awards for Skill and Gallantry presented by the Society since 1851. This e-book gives a fascinating insight into British maritime history and the selfless acts of bravery of so many. Of special interest to anyone with an interest in maritime history and love of the sea. Published on CD at £9.95. To order, please contact Julia Allison on 01243 789329 or email jallison@shipwreckedmariners.org.uk
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Nautical Heritage calendar
This year the Society is pleased to offer an exclusive limited edition calendar. Produced in association with the British Mercantile Memorial Collection, it depicts on twelve picture postcards unique scenes of merchant and fishing steamships. Accompanied by full narratives giving the history and context of each ship, this is a truly unique calendar
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Sunset and Evening Star Vol. II
By popular demand, we are pleased to present a second volume of favourite poems, thoughts and quotations to comfort and inspire, kindly submitted by friends of the Society.
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Signalman Jones by Tim Parker
(available from SMS head office at £9.95 plus £2.00 P & P)
Based on the recollections of Geoffrey Holder-Jones, with a foreword by Rear Admiral John Lippiett CB, MBE, who says the book gives ‘a real feel for the fighting Royal Navy in the middle of the last century’. click to read more...
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Signalman Jones (later Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Holder-Jones DSM, VRD, RNVR) was born in Liverpool in 1915, and his remarkable exploits at sea during the Second World War are here told for the first time.
After he survived a German mine in the Thames estuary in 1939, the war took him, commissioned as a naval officer, to Iceland, Spitsbergen and the USA. Given command of his own ship, he patrolled the waters off Canada and Newfoundland before returning to Britain in 1944.
This true story, written by Tim Parker on the basis of personal conversations and a scrapbook entrusted to him 60 years after the war, illuminates one of the great achievements of the war – the beating of the U-boat blockade of the American coast by squadrons that were little more than motley collections of armed trawlers and whalers.
A keen observer with an eye for the absurd, his story is shot through with the good shipmate’s sense of decency and humour that sustained him through the ordeals of convoy duty in the Arctic Ocean and the dark years of the war.
‘I was asleep when the mine exploded. I woke in inky darkness.’
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It Never Rains, by Dan White (£7.50)
It is the mid-1970s, towards the end of a golden era at sea, when Christopher Ross joins m.v. Reliant, where his first hours aboard bring hardship and misery... click to read more...
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On his first night aboard, there is threat in the shape of a big deckhand, and then an encounter with a violent shore-side character who seems to be linked to the mate in some mysterious enterprise.
The mate is a martinet of the old school, but Chris is happy while on watch with the easy-going second officer, and enjoys the close friendship of Smiles, his happy-go-lucky fellow cadet, and Peter, the dry-humoured junior engineer.
Further mystery is introduced when Ross and Smiles are approached by 'the pale young crewman'. The captain is taken ill, and a charismatic old man takes command in Durban. After this series of rare events begins, leading to loss of communication, near shipwreck on a coral reef and a series of adventures around the atoll. Their rigging of sail, like their inventive fresh water-making, solves some problems, before they are becalmed and out of food. With them virtually at the end of their tether, comes terror and death in the form of a relentless pirate attack.
Amusing interludes include a trip ashore, crossing-the-line ceremonies, and a unique barbeque bringing crew and officers together. Their relief on reaching Singapore is tempered by sadness, recrimination and even romance, but the story ends with the promise of complete fulfilment for Chris Ross.
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Spirit of the Sea, by Dan White (£6.50)
Stories of seafarers and their ships. 'Spirit of the Sea' is a collection of stories, mainly fictional, but with many of them based on fact. It is about we seafarers, whose ships, with the aid of the wind, steam and motor power, ploughed the oceans during that magical marine-age between 1950 and the mid-80s, when life could still be hard, but so many of us content with our lot, and often extremely happy to be at sea.
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To order the above books by Dan White, please contact:
York Publishing Services, 64 Halfield Road, Layerthorpe, York YO31 7ZQ
Tel: 01904 431213 email: enqs@yps-publishing.co.uk
Please note: A share of the profits from the sale of these books are donated to the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society
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Nelson's Avenger and the Smugglers of Plymouth Sound, by Jack Spence
On 21st October 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar, Midshipman John Pollard of HMS Victory shot the French marksman who killed Vice Admiral Lord Nelson. Since that momentous day he has been renowned as the 'Avenger of Nelson'. This is the story of Commander John Pollard's (1786-1868) fascinating life. Born the son of a Cornish smuggler, John Pollard joined the Royal Navy at the age of eleven, achieved a long and distinguished naval career and earned a place in history that far exceeded the expectations of a smuggler's son.
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To order, please forward a cheque for £12.00 per copy (inc P&P) to Jack Spence, 10 Armada Road, Cawsand, Cornwall PL10 1PQ.
For further information about the book, please contact the author by email jjspence@gmail.com
Please note: A share of the profits from the sale of this book are donated to the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society
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