Mark Berry grew up with stories of the sea. His father was a marine engineer and would come home on leave with tales of places like Aden, Hong Kong and San Francisco, all hugely exotic sounding to a boy growing up in 1960s Britain. After reading about the tragedies of Titanic and Lusitania , an interest in liners followed – and so started a lifetime of collecting books, ephemera and items from all kinds of ships. Now retired after thirty-eight years in the property industry, it seemed only natural for Mark to share some of the items in his collection. Mark and his wife Val have two grown-up sons and live in rural Devon with their cats and chickens. When they can, they enjoy escaping to sea on a cruise liner or, even better, an ocean liner.