Bridlington author Richard M Jones publishes two new books covering Britain’s lost tragedies and greatest shipwrecks

The prolific writer has produced ‘Britain’s Lost Tragedies Uncovered’ and ‘The 50 Greatest Shipwrecks’.

The first book starts in Southampton in 1837, via Whitby, to a family tragedy in a small London street, to two different places in Yorkshire where identical disasters have happened at the exact same spot decades apart.

Mr Jones, talking about the shipwrecks book, said: “With around three million shipwrecks around the world it is hard to pick just 50, but in some cases the obvious ones have to be in there.

“Others I had to think about not only the story of the ship but what it means today and how this story is different from the rest.

“The last thing I wanted was 50 identical stories.”

Mr Jones is an author based in Bridlington and Southampton.

A serving member of the Royal Navy he spends all his spare time digging through history to find evidence of forgotten incidents and has placed several memorials to such disasters around the UK.

The two publications are his 15th and 16th books to be released.

Mr Jones added: “My next projects will take some time.

“I would like to write about the first recipient of the George Cross Thomas Alderson, who was a hero of Bridlington.

“The liner Asturias survived a U-Boat attack in 1917 despite it being a hospital ship, a rail crash outside Hull is the third one to occur on that line and I have already written about the other two.

“Not only that I would like to highlight the story of the Marchioness, a veteran of Dunkirk that came to a shocking end as a party boat on the River Thames in 1989.”

The books are available from all good book shops and online.

Britain’s Lost Tragedies Uncovered (The History Press) is priced £12.99.

The 50 Greatest Shipwrecks (Pen and Sword) costs £19.99.