Nat Gould

Cecily Audrey Good 1914-2009

Cecily Audrey Good was born in 1914 at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. She was the daughter of Colonel Cecil Henry Brent Good and his wife nee Irene Fillingham Saxby, daughter of George Saxby. She had two sisters and a brother, and was educated at Wycombe Abbey (1).

She married Sir Basil Gould in 1948 as his second wife, thereby becoming Lady Gould, and died on 25 January 2009 in Newport, Isle of Wight. She had a lifelong interest in sailing, and it was while yachting at Cowes that she met her husband. She also shared her husband's interest in Tibet. In 1960 she found a place in Freshwater for the mother of the Dalai Lama to stay while recovering from a throat operation performed at St. Mary's Hospital in London.

She died on 25 January 2009 in Newport, Isle of Wight.

Lady Gould wrote and published four novels as Cecily Gould:

Gossip: the Biography of a Yacht Gentry Books (1972).

The book tells the story of cruising in a traditional sailing boat from 1899 to 1964, illustrated with line drawings.

The author's father, Cecil Henry Brent Good was a keen yachtsman, a mainstay of the Royal Solent Yacht Club, and for a time its Commodore. In 1920 he saw Gossip on the slip of a Lymington boatyard. She was a thirteen-ton gaff-rigged cutter built in 1899 by P. Harris of Rowhedge in Essex, and sister ship to Firecrest, the yacht in which Alain Gerbault made the first single-handed crossing of the Atlantic from east to west in 1923. He bought Gossip and sailed her home across the Solent to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. In her book Cecily Gould describes her father as being "a gentle master. He seldom shouted or swore at us, which is why we were happy to crew for him after 50 years together." The book is as much a biography of her father as it is of the yacht.


A Tapestry of Time, or Effigy of Love

[[Written around a supposedly historical incident in 1831 on the Isle of Wight, now believed to be fictitious.]

“A delightful tale of love and honour set in the 14th Century when Knights were recruited to fight in the Crusades. A romantic storyline without the 'Mills and Boon' treatment. Tapestry of time (or Effigy of Love) follows the epic journey of Lucy Lightfoot and her lover Edward Estur. The extraordinary bond between the two stands the test of time full of perilous journeys, war, torture, treachery and temptation. The book is written more as a log of events than a novel. From the Isle of Wight, through Bordeaux, to Cyprus and Alexandria the book is written with charm and is geographically and historically interesting.

It illustrates quite clearly that life can be unfair but encourages adherence to strong beliefs and values, acceptance of the consequences and making the best of every situation as it occurs ...

Other books by the same author, well worth a read are: The Living River and Gossip. Cecily writes in a straightforward, matter of fact way - describing scenes and incidences without over dramatisation. Her books are descriptive and well written. They are easy and enjoyable to read and teach you more than you realise!” (2).


Island of the White Toothed Shrew

“It was so foggy that they couldn't pick out any lights on shore. They just had the sinister moaning of the foghorn to guide them. Tom had never been to sea in such conditions and he realised that they were in treacherous waters where the tides ran at fantastic rates. They might be swept onto some outlying rocks at any minute. He suddenly realised the enormity of the job he had undertaken. He was the captain of a strange boat in perilous unknown waters. He thought about his father. What would he do in these conditions? He hoped the others didn't realise the panic he was in. It had been his decision to take the boat and it was up to him to bring it safely back to harbour. They were all relying on him. If only he could keep his head and concentrate, they would be all right. He had always wanted to be in charge of his own yacht, now was his chance. He had to get the Pintail safely back to harbour.”


The Living River Gentry Books (1972).

“A profusely illustrated children’s novel about riverine wildlife.”

(1) Women in context: two hundred years of British women Barbara Kanner (1997).

(2) The book reviews quoted are from booksellers.