Treasure Islands: True Tales of a Shipwreck Hunter by Alec Crawford

As a small boy on Fraserburgh’s often chilly beach, I was fascinated by the wreck of, I think, a fishing boat on the rocks outside the harbour. We were of course forbidden to explore it, but that is the nearest I have come to the subject of Alec Crawford’s absorbing account of his first adventures in the salvage trade, so I didn’t really expect

to enjoy his book. Obviously it would appeal to many, but it seems worthwhile to say that you don’t have to be a sea-going enthusiast to find it fascinating.

The book is the story of his early adventures in the salvage business 50 years ago, first in the Firth of Forth, then off Barra, then to Shetland, Fair Isle and Foula. It was in the waters off Foula that he and his colleague Simon Martin located the wreck of the White Star liner Oceanic, which had been the biggest ship in the world when launched as a passenger liner from Liverpool in 1899; she carried 2,000