Ocean of Longing

A renowned, rich philanthropist, Geoffry Wheatly Cobb saved and restored three of England's historic naval warships, turning them into training vessels. Over several decades Geoffry sponsored apprenticeships for hundreds of working class youths in order to give them a better start in life, and provide what he believed was the time of their lives.

Along with historic ships, youths were Geoffry's other passion; one he detailed with remarkable frankness in his private diaries. A rare survival, they represent a previously hidden history, and lasting record of those vanished days - days filled, as Geoffry wrote, with glorious faces and figures, and joyous life.

It is an intimate view of not only an extraordinary life - of a man whose fortune enabled him to be lord and master of alternative realms in which his then-forbidden sexuality could be freely and fully indulged - but also of a remarkable maritime enterprise from a vanished past.