Michael Morpurgo: how the sinking of the Lusitania inspired my new book

Michael Morpurgo shares photographs he has taken in the Isles of Scilly, the landscape of his latest book. Listen to the Moon tells the story of a young girl found floating in the ocean on a grand piano, after the ship she was on was torpedoed by a German U boat in 1915

  • Michael Morpurgo: There was once in our family a hideous medal, commemorating the sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915. On one side, there was the ship going down, on the other a skeleton selling tickets (seen here) to the passengers. Ever since those two images stayed with me
    Luistania medal

  • I learned later that the ship was torpedoed by a German U Boat, 12 miles off Kinsale, in the south of Ireland, that she went down in just 18 minutes, with the loss of over a thousand passengers. It was at the time the greatest single wartime civilian disaster in history
    Lusitania medal sinking

  • I read around the subject, discovered the great controversy surrounding it, on both sides, that still simmers on to this day. I discovered too that three hours or so after the sinking, the grand piano from the dining saloon of this luxurious liner, was found floating on the ocean, in some reports, with a child still clinging on
    Lusitania letter

  • The image of the medal, of that piano on the ocean, and the child barely alive, a child I knew who must have witnessed the most terrible sights, led me into the dreamtime of my story Listen to the Moon, where a U boat that surfaces near the girl, and rescues her (Lucy in my book), then to St Helen’s on the Isles of Scilly
    Seagull

  • Here you can see The ‘Pest House’ on St Helens, where in my story Listen to the Moon, Lucy is found by Jim and Alfie Wheatcroft. The Pest house stands gaunt and empty, home on a deserted island for my child Lucy, so traumatised by the events of that terrible tragedy that she no longer knows who she is, nor has any memory of a previous life
    The ‘Pest House’

  • This is the channel between the islands of Tresco and Bryher where the boats are moored. This would be where Jim Wheatcroft’s boat was kept in my story. In Listen to the Moon, the Wheatcrofts discover and adopt Lucy
    Boats in Tresco Channel

  • Stones on Popplestones beach. One of the beaches on the Island of Bryher, the home of Alfie Wheatcroft. In the background, you can see the Island of Samson
    Stones on Popplestones beach

  • This is a picture of the school boat today in Tresco Channel. In my story Alfie and Lucy travel on this boat to Tresco and back again everyday for school, just as children do now from Bryher to go to school on Tresco
    School boat in Tresco

  • A photo of a horse on Bryher much like the horse ‘ Peg’ in my story Listen to the Moon
    Peg

  • This is Stinking Porth bay on Bryher. You can see a gig shed in the foreground with the blue door. A gig is a six-oared rowing boat. Originally they were used to as life boats to rescue ships in distress but now they are mostly kept to race
    Stinking Porth bay

  • Round Island lighthouse
    Round Island lighthouse

  • Cormorants on St Helens in the Isles of Scilly
    Cormorants on St Helens

  • Some more of the beautiful wildlife that can be found on the Isles of Scilly, I wanted you to see the seals that bask on the rocks there
    Seals on the Isles of Scilly

  • My story is of Lucy’s slow recovery, her rediscovering of herself. It is a story of love and loss, of family and community fractured by war, of the power of hope, and above all of the will of the human spirit to survive. I hope you enjoy reading my book Listen to the Moon which is available from the Guardian bookshop. More on my website
    Listen to the Moon
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